Am I overpaying my financial advisor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Poster who changed from FA to mostly self-managed. How we switched, which isn't that helpful in your case, but here you go in case anything helps:

One, we first switched TO the FA, which as mentioned by other posters required several tax events. (Yes, we were incredibly naive and I truly get angry just thinking about how they took advantage of that naïveté and the money we lost when we first started.) Then realized what a racket it was.

Two, we had a long-time relationship with our big bank, and had/have a person who makes his money through the amount he has under management. But it's a % that the bank pays him. We don't pay anything other than the fee for any funds we buy. (Started with SPY, SDY and SHY. Have started using VOO because of the lesser fee.)

He took care of everything to get us from the FA firm back into the bank. We sat down and came up with a plan for how to deploy before he did it. (There are protocols for how this is done.)

Thankfully, a lot was in tax-free or retirement accounts, plus way too much cash from assets they liquidated. I saw pretty quickly that it wasn't for us, so wouldn't let them put the cash to work while I started doing research.

As to our bank FA, we used to have a weekly call with him on strategy, tweaking, and frankly a lot of learning. Now we talk regularly but not nearly as often because we are mostly set and not a lot to do.

Separately, we have (and always have had) a CPA who does our taxes. No question some are better than others.

We have quite a bit of money, and our person doesn't take new people on anymore, but there has to be younger people who are trying to grow their own book of business who would be thrilled to take on your account.

Someone here might know if Vanguard, Schwab or Fidelity could do this for you. The only person I know who is at Schwab and has an advisor does pay a fee. I wonder if once you are set if you can then go to self-managed?

The bank pays him, guess again. You pay him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

PP again..Looks like you need a plan-only advisor. I've seen this company recommended on other threads (https://atwoodfinancial.com/). No personal experience though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poster who changed from FA to mostly self-managed. How we switched, which isn't that helpful in your case, but here you go in case anything helps:

One, we first switched TO the FA, which as mentioned by other posters required several tax events. (Yes, we were incredibly naive and I truly get angry just thinking about how they took advantage of that naïveté and the money we lost when we first started.) Then realized what a racket it was.

Two, we had a long-time relationship with our big bank, and had/have a person who makes his money through the amount he has under management. But it's a % that the bank pays him. We don't pay anything other than the fee for any funds we buy. (Started with SPY, SDY and SHY. Have started using VOO because of the lesser fee.)

He took care of everything to get us from the FA firm back into the bank. We sat down and came up with a plan for how to deploy before he did it. (There are protocols for how this is done.)

Thankfully, a lot was in tax-free or retirement accounts, plus way too much cash from assets they liquidated. I saw pretty quickly that it wasn't for us, so wouldn't let them put the cash to work while I started doing research.

As to our bank FA, we used to have a weekly call with him on strategy, tweaking, and frankly a lot of learning. Now we talk regularly but not nearly as often because we are mostly set and not a lot to do.

Separately, we have (and always have had) a CPA who does our taxes. No question some are better than others.

We have quite a bit of money, and our person doesn't take new people on anymore, but there has to be younger people who are trying to grow their own book of business who would be thrilled to take on your account.

Someone here might know if Vanguard, Schwab or Fidelity could do this for you. The only person I know who is at Schwab and has an advisor does pay a fee. I wonder if once you are set if you can then go to self-managed?

The bank pays him, guess again. You pay him.

Actually, we aren't. I have checked. We pay no fee at all. There are other divisions within the bank that are fee based, but not our situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

No. What I am recommending is to cut the cord immediately. Every extra day you are with him costs you at least $25. Each account that your advisor manages will get transferred over to your control (or a new account will be created and assets moved over). Wells Fargo by itself will not charge you anything to operate self-managed accounts. Once you figure out a strategy with an advisor, you could move those accounts piecemeal to another destination. For example, you may choose to consolidate your Roth IRA with another Roth you may have created elsewhere but move your brokerage to Schwab.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poster who changed from FA to mostly self-managed. How we switched, which isn't that helpful in your case, but here you go in case anything helps:

One, we first switched TO the FA, which as mentioned by other posters required several tax events. (Yes, we were incredibly naive and I truly get angry just thinking about how they took advantage of that naïveté and the money we lost when we first started.) Then realized what a racket it was.

Two, we had a long-time relationship with our big bank, and had/have a person who makes his money through the amount he has under management. But it's a % that the bank pays him. We don't pay anything other than the fee for any funds we buy. (Started with SPY, SDY and SHY. Have started using VOO because of the lesser fee.)

He took care of everything to get us from the FA firm back into the bank. We sat down and came up with a plan for how to deploy before he did it. (There are protocols for how this is done.)

Thankfully, a lot was in tax-free or retirement accounts, plus way too much cash from assets they liquidated. I saw pretty quickly that it wasn't for us, so wouldn't let them put the cash to work while I started doing research.

As to our bank FA, we used to have a weekly call with him on strategy, tweaking, and frankly a lot of learning. Now we talk regularly but not nearly as often because we are mostly set and not a lot to do.

Separately, we have (and always have had) a CPA who does our taxes. No question some are better than others.

We have quite a bit of money, and our person doesn't take new people on anymore, but there has to be younger people who are trying to grow their own book of business who would be thrilled to take on your account.

Someone here might know if Vanguard, Schwab or Fidelity could do this for you. The only person I know who is at Schwab and has an advisor does pay a fee. I wonder if once you are set if you can then go to self-managed?

The bank pays him, guess again. You pay him.

Actually, we aren't. I have checked. We pay no fee at all. There are other divisions within the bank that are fee based, but not our situation.

I will add that he is not a fiduciary and he doesn't advise us as to what to do. He provides us with information if we ask for it. If we ask for recommendations, he provides us with what the bank recommends. There is no fee to buy or sell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poster who changed from FA to mostly self-managed. How we switched, which isn't that helpful in your case, but here you go in case anything helps:

One, we first switched TO the FA, which as mentioned by other posters required several tax events. (Yes, we were incredibly naive and I truly get angry just thinking about how they took advantage of that naïveté and the money we lost when we first started.) Then realized what a racket it was.

Two, we had a long-time relationship with our big bank, and had/have a person who makes his money through the amount he has under management. But it's a % that the bank pays him. We don't pay anything other than the fee for any funds we buy. (Started with SPY, SDY and SHY. Have started using VOO because of the lesser fee.)

He took care of everything to get us from the FA firm back into the bank. We sat down and came up with a plan for how to deploy before he did it. (There are protocols for how this is done.)

Thankfully, a lot was in tax-free or retirement accounts, plus way too much cash from assets they liquidated. I saw pretty quickly that it wasn't for us, so wouldn't let them put the cash to work while I started doing research.

As to our bank FA, we used to have a weekly call with him on strategy, tweaking, and frankly a lot of learning. Now we talk regularly but not nearly as often because we are mostly set and not a lot to do.

Separately, we have (and always have had) a CPA who does our taxes. No question some are better than others.

We have quite a bit of money, and our person doesn't take new people on anymore, but there has to be younger people who are trying to grow their own book of business who would be thrilled to take on your account.

Someone here might know if Vanguard, Schwab or Fidelity could do this for you. The only person I know who is at Schwab and has an advisor does pay a fee. I wonder if once you are set if you can then go to self-managed?

The bank pays him, guess again. You pay him.

Actually, we aren't. I have checked. We pay no fee at all. There are other divisions within the bank that are fee based, but not our situation.

I will add that he is not a fiduciary and he doesn't advise us as to what to do. He provides us with information if we ask for it. If we ask for recommendations, he provides us with what the bank recommends. There is no fee to buy or sell.

I just read backwards, and will add that we pay no account fees either. Again, I watch it all. I notice when I think something is off by a few pennies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ugh I feel sick hearing this. Just spoke with DH and advisor had recommended deploying the mutual funds slow and steady in case the market crashed. The mutual funds were supposed to just beat inflation and do better than a savings account while we slowly deploy. I guess it’s all relative to risk tolerance, and we’re not being aggressive enough. What if I just tell him to move it all to a cleared S&P 500 index fund? We have time to ride the waves and understand there’s no guarantee.

I agree this has nothing to do with risk tolerance and everything to do with you being fleeced by fees.

Now that I think you have bought on to this, we need to help you get out of this. You need to exit every single one of those funds. Keeping the individual FAANG stocks is a personal risk choice; at least they are not generating expense fees. But I would move them to Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity to take them out of your assets generating an AUM fee. While you are at it, move the cash to one of their money market funds.

Tell us the extent to which these funds are held in a taxable account, that is, not held in a retirement account like a Roth IRA. (I am assuming that you do not have an active IRA because you are doing backdoor Roths.) You can sell all the funds in a retirement account immediately with no tax implications and move the funds over to a Roth account to wherever you are moving your stock and money market funds.

But as a previous PP has said, selling all the other funds, could generate taxable income if they are not in a retirement account, and you will need advice on how to unwind them. I think this is particularly a concern for you because I am quite sure Vanguard would not accept a portfolio of these funds; you' have to check if Schwab or Fidelity would. This might mean you would need to liquidate them with your current financial advisor and continue to pay those fees until they are liquidated.

You need to hire a good tax CPA or one-time advise only financial advisor to figure out the liquidation exit plan in a way that balances out taxes dues from sales and fees from continuing to hold.

Once these funds are liquidated you can figure out a new deployment plan for the cash. Don't try to ride the wave; you already have a hefty share of FAANG for that should you keep that. You should be planning for optimizing your returns for the long-run, not for whatever further gains you may think are possible this year--absolutely no one is able to predict that.

Excellent advice. Saved me the time to type up what I would have said, with more info. OP, this is your guide right here.

Op here. Thank you so much! I think I’m going to go with Schwab because it’s an approved brokerage listed by my husband’s company. I have no idea how to find a good fee-only based advisor (any specific recommendations?)so I’ll probably just go with someone through Schwab to help me liquidate all the other funds with the current FA, assuming they can’t be transferred over. Then as I get more comfortable, I’ll ditch the Schwab help and mange myself. And when I said “ride the wave,” I meant getting the most ROI while continuing to grow our portfolio. I’ll keep the individual stocks (for now) and move them over to Schwab as well. [At the moment, the individual stocks are like our fun gambling pot which we don’t touch]. As far as tax implications, if the Schwab level of support can’t help me, I can ask our CPA who does our taxes.

And once my Schwab accounts are set up, we’ll start adding funds to those accounts instead of sending to our current FA. I’m assuming my FA will be notified by Schwab that we’re moving our money? Is this a conversation I should have with him before they do (assuming they’ll help me through this)?

If you have youngish children, and you work, do you really think you will have the bandwidth to watch your portfolio?

I tried doing that myself, and it was too hard. I didn't have time to research everything, and pay attention to the stock market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

No. What I am recommending is to cut the cord immediately. Every extra day you are with him costs you at least $25. Each account that your advisor manages will get transferred over to your control (or a new account will be created and assets moved over). Wells Fargo by itself will not charge you anything to operate self-managed accounts. Once you figure out a strategy with an advisor, you could move those accounts piecemeal to another destination. For example, you may choose to consolidate your Roth IRA with another Roth you may have created elsewhere but move your brokerage to Schwab.

Op here. This is brilliant and allows me to act quickly and re-evaluate/come up with a plan. As for money we send him currently, do you have thoughts on where we should put that in our existing plan? Thank you PP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ugh I feel sick hearing this. Just spoke with DH and advisor had recommended deploying the mutual funds slow and steady in case the market crashed. The mutual funds were supposed to just beat inflation and do better than a savings account while we slowly deploy. I guess it’s all relative to risk tolerance, and we’re not being aggressive enough. What if I just tell him to move it all to a cleared S&P 500 index fund? We have time to ride the waves and understand there’s no guarantee.

I agree this has nothing to do with risk tolerance and everything to do with you being fleeced by fees.

Now that I think you have bought on to this, we need to help you get out of this. You need to exit every single one of those funds. Keeping the individual FAANG stocks is a personal risk choice; at least they are not generating expense fees. But I would move them to Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity to take them out of your assets generating an AUM fee. While you are at it, move the cash to one of their money market funds.

Tell us the extent to which these funds are held in a taxable account, that is, not held in a retirement account like a Roth IRA. (I am assuming that you do not have an active IRA because you are doing backdoor Roths.) You can sell all the funds in a retirement account immediately with no tax implications and move the funds over to a Roth account to wherever you are moving your stock and money market funds.

But as a previous PP has said, selling all the other funds, could generate taxable income if they are not in a retirement account, and you will need advice on how to unwind them. I think this is particularly a concern for you because I am quite sure Vanguard would not accept a portfolio of these funds; you' have to check if Schwab or Fidelity would. This might mean you would need to liquidate them with your current financial advisor and continue to pay those fees until they are liquidated.

You need to hire a good tax CPA or one-time advise only financial advisor to figure out the liquidation exit plan in a way that balances out taxes dues from sales and fees from continuing to hold.

Once these funds are liquidated you can figure out a new deployment plan for the cash. Don't try to ride the wave; you already have a hefty share of FAANG for that should you keep that. You should be planning for optimizing your returns for the long-run, not for whatever further gains you may think are possible this year--absolutely no one is able to predict that.

Excellent advice. Saved me the time to type up what I would have said, with more info. OP, this is your guide right here.

Op here. Thank you so much! I think I’m going to go with Schwab because it’s an approved brokerage listed by my husband’s company. I have no idea how to find a good fee-only based advisor (any specific recommendations?)so I’ll probably just go with someone through Schwab to help me liquidate all the other funds with the current FA, assuming they can’t be transferred over. Then as I get more comfortable, I’ll ditch the Schwab help and mange myself. And when I said “ride the wave,” I meant getting the most ROI while continuing to grow our portfolio. I’ll keep the individual stocks (for now) and move them over to Schwab as well. [At the moment, the individual stocks are like our fun gambling pot which we don’t touch]. As far as tax implications, if the Schwab level of support can’t help me, I can ask our CPA who does our taxes.

And once my Schwab accounts are set up, we’ll start adding funds to those accounts instead of sending to our current FA. I’m assuming my FA will be notified by Schwab that we’re moving our money? Is this a conversation I should have with him before they do (assuming they’ll help me through this)?

I wouldn't get too excited about Schwab. I would not pay any money for their advisory services. They do not do tax planning which you need if you are selling in a taxable account.

Do not sell out of any positions until you meet with a fiduciary advisor - you will find some good ones at NAPFA.org

This is not something to make a quick decision on. You can find a good financial advisor in less than a month. Check out their websites, call up to 10 and meet with 3 in person, then choose one.

This decision could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Once you get into the Schwab, Vanguard salespeople, you will think that everything they say is correct. Which it isn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

No. What I am recommending is to cut the cord immediately. Every extra day you are with him costs you at least $25. Each account that your advisor manages will get transferred over to your control (or a new account will be created and assets moved over). Wells Fargo by itself will not charge you anything to operate self-managed accounts. Once you figure out a strategy with an advisor, you could move those accounts piecemeal to another destination. For example, you may choose to consolidate your Roth IRA with another Roth you may have created elsewhere but move your brokerage to Schwab.

Op here. This is brilliant and allows me to act quickly and re-evaluate/come up with a plan. As for money we send him currently, do you have thoughts on where we should put that in our existing plan? Thank you PP!

As others have advised, I'd save that in a money market fund in a brokerage account for now. A lot of them yield 5%ish. Don't rush into the market (S&P funds or otherwise). The market is quite high and entering the "flat season" and will be down soon and range bound through the end of summer so you are not missing anything. I shared an advisor's name in another post. Feel them out - most will talk to you free for an hour or so - and see if they can help you with a plan. Once you have that, executing it shouldn't be that difficult. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ugh I feel sick hearing this. Just spoke with DH and advisor had recommended deploying the mutual funds slow and steady in case the market crashed. The mutual funds were supposed to just beat inflation and do better than a savings account while we slowly deploy. I guess it’s all relative to risk tolerance, and we’re not being aggressive enough. What if I just tell him to move it all to a cleared S&P 500 index fund? We have time to ride the waves and understand there’s no guarantee.

I agree this has nothing to do with risk tolerance and everything to do with you being fleeced by fees.

Now that I think you have bought on to this, we need to help you get out of this. You need to exit every single one of those funds. Keeping the individual FAANG stocks is a personal risk choice; at least they are not generating expense fees. But I would move them to Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity to take them out of your assets generating an AUM fee. While you are at it, move the cash to one of their money market funds.

Tell us the extent to which these funds are held in a taxable account, that is, not held in a retirement account like a Roth IRA. (I am assuming that you do not have an active IRA because you are doing backdoor Roths.) You can sell all the funds in a retirement account immediately with no tax implications and move the funds over to a Roth account to wherever you are moving your stock and money market funds.

But as a previous PP has said, selling all the other funds, could generate taxable income if they are not in a retirement account, and you will need advice on how to unwind them. I think this is particularly a concern for you because I am quite sure Vanguard would not accept a portfolio of these funds; you' have to check if Schwab or Fidelity would. This might mean you would need to liquidate them with your current financial advisor and continue to pay those fees until they are liquidated.

You need to hire a good tax CPA or one-time advise only financial advisor to figure out the liquidation exit plan in a way that balances out taxes dues from sales and fees from continuing to hold.

Once these funds are liquidated you can figure out a new deployment plan for the cash. Don't try to ride the wave; you already have a hefty share of FAANG for that should you keep that. You should be planning for optimizing your returns for the long-run, not for whatever further gains you may think are possible this year--absolutely no one is able to predict that.

Excellent advice. Saved me the time to type up what I would have said, with more info. OP, this is your guide right here.

Op here. Thank you so much! I think I’m going to go with Schwab because it’s an approved brokerage listed by my husband’s company. I have no idea how to find a good fee-only based advisor (any specific recommendations?)so I’ll probably just go with someone through Schwab to help me liquidate all the other funds with the current FA, assuming they can’t be transferred over. Then as I get more comfortable, I’ll ditch the Schwab help and mange myself. And when I said “ride the wave,” I meant getting the most ROI while continuing to grow our portfolio. I’ll keep the individual stocks (for now) and move them over to Schwab as well. [At the moment, the individual stocks are like our fun gambling pot which we don’t touch]. As far as tax implications, if the Schwab level of support can’t help me, I can ask our CPA who does our taxes.

And once my Schwab accounts are set up, we’ll start adding funds to those accounts instead of sending to our current FA. I’m assuming my FA will be notified by Schwab that we’re moving our money? Is this a conversation I should have with him before they do (assuming they’ll help me through this)?

If you have youngish children, and you work, do you really think you will have the bandwidth to watch your portfolio?

I tried doing that myself, and it was too hard. I didn't have time to research everything, and pay attention to the stock market.

Op here. I do work and no, I don’t have time to routinely manage it, but I think putting new funds in an S&P index fund or something similar would be more beneficial over the long term and I won’t be paying $10k+ a year in just fees (especially since we only have $750k).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

More useul information, OP. If this is a Wells advisor, they must be using WellsTrade, which looks like it has a retail option:

https://www.wellsfargo.com/investing/wellstrade-online-brokerage/

So the very helpful PP who suggested that your advisor is using a trading platform like TD Ameritrade could be pointing to the easiest way to get out from under the FA. Tell him you are going to self-managed and do the transfer, putting you as self-managed on WellsTrade. You may be able to sell the funds from there. You will still need to figure out the tax aspects of selling and could consult with your CPA on that.

WellsTrade is not a name that comes up as a low cost retail brokerage. But you wouldn't be subject to management fees and they offer zero-fee purchases of stock, ETFs, and no load, no transaction fee mutual funds. They do not seem to offer low cost advice services like Schwab does.

Given your experience, however, you may not wish to take chances and transfer all of your accounts to Schwab. If you can sort out your fund mess on Wells Trade on your own with advice from your CPA, once yo get to Schwab, you could well go with their mid-price advice option until you are comfortable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

PP again..Looks like you need a plan-only advisor. I've seen this company recommended on other threads (https://atwoodfinancial.com/). No personal experience though.

Reviewed their website, looks like financial planning lite. You can do better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, a better option would be to meet with a financial planner, that will go over your estate plan, all of your insurances, tax planning , retirement planning and investment management for a year. After the year, you can decide if you need them further. If your life is not complicated, you might not need to see a financial planner till you are a few years from retirement. This approach will save you money in the long run.

OP here. This is what our FA did the first time we met with him. Isn’t it the same thing or very similar?

It depends on the level of diligence that was provided. How long have you been with them? Can you tell us investments the advisor put you in and how much money roughly is in them?

We’ve been with him since 2018 and this was all new to us at the time. We’re currently in our early 40s with two young kids and I just feel like everything is so conservative with him and we’re not making enough to justify his fees. To be fair, I have a higher risk tolerance than my husband but my husband has gotten on board with my more aggressive suggestions of investing. The main reason we signed up with him was because of the all of the pre-clearance requirements and we were just a bit overwhelmed with where to start. When the kids are done with daycare, we’ll be able to add even more cash in addition to what we contribute on a monthly basis.

OP, pull out your latest statement and provide the fund and dollar amount. That info is key to helping you figure this out.

OP here: here’s for our main account.
$186k in mutual funds: CMINX, EGRIX, PGINX
$265k in individual stocks. Lots of FAANG (to be fair, we asked for these a few years ago).
$248k in ETFs (lots of wisdom tree ones): XLK, EPS, DLN, DON, KOMP, EZM, JEPI, DWM, DES, FES, DEM, AOR.
$21k in cash.

Does this help?

More than likely your advisor uses a brokerage to hold your assets (e.g. TD Ameritrade). Tell them you want to manage funds on your own and ask them to transfer ownership to you. I did this a couple of years ago and they just created new accounts and moved the money from their custody to mine. Literally happened the next day. You need to do this because other brokerages may not even transact in those mutual funds.

Next deal with taxes. At the simplest level, you can offset profits and losses. I'm assuming some of your positions are in the red and most are black. Sell enough to offset the red (you'll have to sell both). For example, if you have a profit of $10K with XLK and a loss of $5K on EPS, sell all of EPS and enough of XLK to realize $5K in profit. Even otherwise, your mutual funds are not that much. Assuming even half of your fund balance ($93K) is profit (unlikely), you are talking about a $20k tax. You just need to sit with a good CPA to find enough losses to offset that profit to minimize taxes. Remember that you will also be saving 10K/year now that you've fired the advisor.

If you like the brokerage's interface, etc. just stay with them. if not, move to a Schwab or Fidelity, engage a plan-only advisor elsewhere before you make your moves.

This is interesting advice about staying with the our current brokerage which is Wells Fargo Advisors, which he’s affiliated with. But then I’m still paying higher account fees than say Charles Schwab, right?

No. What I am recommending is to cut the cord immediately. Every extra day you are with him costs you at least $25. Each account that your advisor manages will get transferred over to your control (or a new account will be created and assets moved over). Wells Fargo by itself will not charge you anything to operate self-managed accounts. Once you figure out a strategy with an advisor, you could move those accounts piecemeal to another destination. For example, you may choose to consolidate your Roth IRA with another Roth you may have created elsewhere but move your brokerage to Schwab.

Op here. This is brilliant and allows me to act quickly and re-evaluate/come up with a plan. As for money we send him currently, do you have thoughts on where we should put that in our existing plan? Thank you PP!

As others have advised, I'd save that in a money market fund in a brokerage account for now. A lot of them yield 5%ish. Don't rush into the market (S&P funds or otherwise). The market is quite high and entering the "flat season" and will be down soon and range bound through the end of summer so you are not missing anything. I shared an advisor's name in another post. Feel them out - most will talk to you free for an hour or so - and see if they can help you with a plan. Once you have that, executing it shouldn't be that difficult. Good luck.

Op here. Yes, good thinking on not rushing into market. I’ll look into a money market fund with my current Wells Fargo brokerage (hopefully one that’s also available in Schwab if I decide to change). Obviously, I think I do need some help whether that be from fee-only based advisor or a discount brokerage advisor to start. Plus my CPA. To be fair, our current FA has provided tax advice at the end of the year. We just went with whatever he recommended.