Top 10 Questions to Ask your Investment Advisor

Some investment advisors are great and can improve your investment returns 10 fold while lowering your risk; however, the overwhelming majority are prize idiots that are no better than a used car salesman in a fancy suite.  This list of questions is meant to help you weed out the knowledgeable and skilled financial advisors from the majority.

Before we begin, let’s define what the role of an investment advisor is through a simple sports analogy.

If the investment advisor (IA) were on a financial services football team they would be the quarterback.   The IA is in charge of analyzing the field to determine a plan to help you reach your touchdown or goal.  This normally involves negotiating between many financial intermediaries from banks and credit unions to fund management companies to tax planners to stock and bond brokers.  They are responsible for advising you to invest in the stock market, bond market, money market, etc.  One of the main benefits to employing an investment advisor is the access to their contacts and knowledge base.

What 10 questions do I need an IA to answer to determine if they are skilled and knowledgeable?

1) How many years of Experience do you have?

• It’s not all about years of experience, but someone that has been around long enough to see the good times of a bull market and the tough times of a bear market or major correction is going to be more insightful when analyzing risk profiles.

2) What is your education background?

• It’s no surprise that this question gets over looked because most people think it is a very difficult task to become an IA, but I beg to differ.  There is no higher education requirement, just some memorization of a bunch of BS that is very unlikely to be used.  Do a couple of correspondents courses and gitty-up.  Having an IA that has completed at least an undergraduate degree shows they likely have a deeper understanding of a broad base of topics.  Investing is not always straight forward to this is a real benefit.

3) How much money are you managing?

• There are advisors out there that scrap by turning a small portfolio.  This is not in your best interest.  Much of the time, these advisors with small client books encourage their clients to buy and sell much more frequently than they should to take a commission.

4) What’s your average account size?

• If you only have a small amount to work with compared to the rest of their clients your account will get less attention.  Further, if you have a much larger account than the average maybe they are not qualified enough to handle such a large account.  It is normally best to be in the middle of their client base.

5) How many clients do you have?

• Too many clients’ means you are not going to get the attention you should while too little means they have just started out or nobody sticks around for that long.

6) What financial products do you promote?

• Here’s where things get a little sticky.  If your IA is working for one of the big banks then their priorities are to sell you financial products developed by their bank.  There may be some good products, but you will also be missing out on the other products offered by all other institutions.  This may not sound like a big deal, but consider that they may sell you a GIC from their bank while the competitors are offering a better deal.  This type of occurrence is a lot more common than you think.

7) Do you get any New Issue Business?

• This is important because during the boom times IPOs can be a huge benefit to your portfolio.  If the firm or IA you are going with does not get allotted any New Issues you are missing out on some huge profit potential.

8. What is your Research Department like?

• This sounds very generic, but consider that many firms research departments are non-existent.  Having a good research department leads to better tools for your IA to make financial decisions for you.

9) What hours are you available?

• You may laugh at this question, but it is very important.  You had better hope that at a minimum they are available during market hours.  What happens if they are never available at market open or close?  These are the most volatile parts of the investment day and very likely the time when you will perform most of your trades.

10) What’s your rate?

• This is where you will likely see a strong variance.  A broker that is well established does not need your business as badly as a new or small time IA.  Further, consider that if they are paid per trade their incentive is to trade your account while if you can go with an annual portfolio fee (normally between 1-2%) their incentive is to increase the value of your portfolio.  I am a big believer in the annual portfolio fee because then your IA will be looking to maximize your returns while minimizing trading costs.  If they were instead receiving commission per trade obviously to make more money they need to keep you trading even when it’s not in your best interest.