[USER]

What do we think about the positions our FA has us in? Approx $1.6m under mgmt ($1M in retirment, $250k in SEP and $350k in savings)

wife and I are 40 with 3 kids under 7.

Long ways to retirement…

We are a family of five (two parents aged 40, and three kids) with $1.6 million under the management of a financial advisor (FA).

Is our FA’s strategy and management approach ideal for our family’s current and future financial needs?

We seek advice on the suitability of their investment strategy, fees, risk management, and overall performance.

Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

[Christopher]

This is absurdly complicated, and the fund fees are probably terrible.
Your FA probably loves you – they make a lot from you.

[Melanie]

This looks like a managed account that you probably pay .75%-1% for not including SIGNIFICANT underlying fund fees that are eating away at your growth.

I’d also bet that a number of your equity funds have overlapping holdings (same stocks in multiple funds) which creates concentration risk regardless of the fact you own an unreasonable number of holdings, giving you the false impression of diversification.
Also those returns…

[Brad]

This is one of the worst examples of FA insanity that I’ve seen. It’s total nonsense from what I can tell

And a reminder of the fact that that one decision is going to cost ~50% of your net worth:

[Kelly]

Even your savings account is going negative with 0.55% return. You could have 5% right now in online bank savings accounts & CDs with zero risk.

So, to answer your question in a “Finding Nemo” way: ” This is bad, Dorrie.

This is very bad “

[Frank]

Really bad, really complicated, really expensive. It’s a Forrest Gump portfolio, and not in a good way.

I don’t see the point of this — have they ever even attempted to explain it?

[Bill]

They fool you with complexity to make you think they are doing something for you when in fact they are lining their pockets not yours.

FIRE THEM!

[Joe]

Accumulating or decumulating? Either way, it’s time to say goodbye. Too many funds, too high of fees. And the bonds, oh my!

If 5+ yrs from retiring then all in VTI.

If less, listen to Risk Parity Radio podcast (episodes 1,3,5,7…

[Michael]

I manage a similar amount with 3 funds and pay less than $800 per year. Your advisor is simply throwing crap on the wall and seeing what sticks.

[Charlotte]

Good grief. And does that say your YTD returns are 3%? And how much are you paying this FA?

[Sean]

I really hope this is a joke, but I’m sure it isn’t. Any FA that would create a portfolio like this does not have your best interests in mind.

This is the very definition of manufactured complexity, while racking up the costs for no good reason.

[Brian]

I’d be curious to hear their explanation about why there are so many funds.

After many years of self-managing, I thought it would be good to get an opinion from a pro.

I paid Vanguard a few hundred dollars years ago to advise.

Among the things they said was that it’s not necessary to have the same funds in my IRA vs my wife’s IRA.

That we could get our target allocation with very few funds all across our different IRA, Roth IRA, 401k, and 403b accounts.

It’s so much simpler.

[Trevis]

Another testimony for Risk Parity Radio and taking this over yourself.
About the FA’s portfolio…

the gains are awful, it’s complicated, it’s not free.

My portfolio is in a conservative retirement style allocation and it’s up over 10% this year with only 40% in stocks.

(I’m using a golden butterfly asset allocation)

[Jesse]

Aivfx is a good one to analyze by itself. High expense ratio and it’s only up 15% over the last 5 years.

Nbpix is underperforming.

Your bond percentage might be too high depending on if you are in retirement or far from retirement.

This is needlessly complicated and is just set up this way to look complicated.

If you actually saw what stocks you’re invested in with all of these funds, you’d see that a simplified, low fee mix of funds would have all of the same holdings

[John]

I can guarantee the OP gets lovely greeting cards from their “FA” for every holiday!

The jokers working out of firms that sell high load funds get massive commissions and use only a tiny bit of that to send “Best Regards” to their “dear friend”…

[Erica]

But the book Simple Path to Wealth. Fire your FA. This is highway robbery.

[Brian]

Here’s what ceases to amaze me! This FA has just about every brand name company out there!

I haven’t even heard of some of these, why not keep it simple and just a couple brand names to choose from.

This guy is like giving a monkey darts and throwing them at a newspaper and see what hits.

Who does the FA work for?

Terrible choices!

[Lacey]

If you need to come here to ask how your FA is doing with your allocation, there’s no point to having a FA.

They should be explaining evening to you in a way you can understand it or they’re not earning their fees.

[Aaron]

I looked up a few funds and they’re all high fee (expense ratio) between 0.5-1%.

Then you’re paying an AUM fee.

Here’s an easy example of a change that you should makes.

Savings – if this is really a savings account you can put this all into a brokerage account at Fidelity.

The current yield is 5%.

Your FA is making you 0.33% return on your cash account with high fee garbage in a 20/80 ratio.

There’s zero reason for your FA to have this money.

[张扬]

Way too complicated and your FA should feel bad, but I bet they did this to ensure they’ll keep their job and make it extremely difficult for you to unwind without a lot of pain.

[David]

Looks overly and unnecessarilycomplicated. What is the purpose of these holdings?

I can only assume from the percentage equity holdings that you are near or in retirement? If so, you can do better.

If not, RUN!!

[Author]

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