Do You Trust Your Broker?

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how do you varify your broker when is thousends of milis away.

Aref Ali of AL 3:33PM March 25, 2010

I'm a financial adviser. I understand why people don't trust us now. We haven't been able to shield anyone (including ourselves) from this meltdown.
There has been no safe place to hide in this market. Brokers may be honest (or not) but they sure aren't fortune tellers. I feel that a good adviser helps a client chart a course to achieve their financial goals given expected market performance.
Very few people, myself included, saw this coming. Its easy now to say that everyone knew what was going to happen but as the days passed, it was a different story.
I'd ask the same people who suggest that advisers should have known what to do one simple question.
What is the market going to do this year and what are you going to do about it?

Neal Frankle of CA 11:57PM February 21, 2009

A good trustworthy broker is is hard to find.I had acomfortable retirement fund and retired in jan.2000.By the start of 2002 he had lost 25% of the portfolio.He seemed frozen as to what to do and reccomended to do nothig but hold on for the long term.He refused to sell anything.By the end Of 2000 my portfolio was only 50% of its value at the beginning of year.
I talked to an old family broker who was with a different company. He of course convinced me that other guy knew nothing about investing.I switched my investments to him and his company.Eventually recovered about 95%.
By mid 2007 things started down again.I got scared and told him we should move it all to cash. Again the same reasoning as the first broker came into play.Just hang on,your portfolio is diverified and you'll be fine.Now,he has lost more than 60%.
Im now 65 and really down.My wife and I know that time is becoming a factor.A quick recovery doesn't look to promising.
Anyway, I'm comvinced that most brokers have definate prorities;theirs first,yours last!
If things are getting scary,dont be afraid to move into cash.Listen to yourself,not your broker.He has made plenty from you.If you stay with him he'll make plenty more.
Just remember,preservation of your capitol is your priority.His is to keep your portfolio so he'll have income in the future.

shenk of WV 6:32PM February 21, 2009

As astonishing as this declaration is in this day and age, I am a retired military person who continues to bank with USAA and I trust them to remain good stewards of my "savings". That said, I wouldn't throw blind trust into any "investment" products, even through their institution, without studying it carefully, and monitoring it. I am a product of my grandparents' experience in 1931 of losing everything to dishonest lawyers, stockbrokers, and bankers. Dinosaur, yes, broke, no.

K. Daraa of OR 2:24AM February 21, 2009

2First of and further most I am disabled retired. I call my retirement a JESUS RETIREMENT. I lived to survived a massive hematoma in layman's terms a brain aneurysm and stroke. The
residual is that mleft pheripeal vision was blinded, I endure
being fatigue but I refused to use a power wheel chair. I will
walk with a cane or walker until I can't. The walker that I have
been blessed with you can walk and when you get tired you can
sit on it. We need to stop complaining and say Thank You Lord
allowing me to live thru emergency brain surgery and extensive
research. I still do a lot of volunteer work and serve on several ministries at my church. For this I give God the glory
and await my next task or test he has for me.
Susan L.Coleman
Atlanta, Georgia

Susan L Coleman of GA 5:43PM February 20, 2009