Professional Money Management with Fisher Investments

Do You Know What Money Management Options Are Available to You?

Today, there are many investing options available and literally thousands of products, which can be daunting. How do you choose which is best for you? After cutting through the noise, there are essentially six general investing methods, each with its own benefits and drawbacks.

Whether you decide to self-manage, hire a broker or financial planner, buy mutual funds, open a wrap account, invest in hedge funds, or hire a private portfolio manager, the decision will hinge on:

• Who do you want making investing decisions for you?
• What kind of investing strategy is most appropriate for you?
• What fee structure do you prefer, and how transparent do you want it to be?
• What level of custom-tailoring and service do you require?

The following PDF file can help you understand your options as you make this decision.

Industry Overview (PDF, 470K)

Picking the right money manager

Unless you decide to self-manage, you’ll be hiring someone to provide advice. Whether that person merely makes product suggestions based on an investment strategy you craft, like a broker, or is making all decisions for your portfolio, like a private portfolio manager, it’s important to understand what is driving their decision-making. In addition, you should understand whether that person has a verifiable history of making sound decisions.

At minimum, be sure to ask the person you’re thinking of hiring the following:

• Is your firm responsible for making or recommending ongoing changes to my asset allocation mix?
• How would my asset mix change if you forecast a bear market? A bull market?
• Who’s responsible for making those forecasts?
• Does the individual or firm have a proven history of making these types of forecasts?
• Is the company independent? Are there any conflicts of interest in your goals and mine?
• How does your firm get compensated to manage my money? Aside from what I pay you, what other compensation do you receive?
• When your firm contacts clients, is it primarily to sell products?

Those questions are a good start, however, to more fully understand how someone will steer your assets, the following list of questions is a useful guide.

To explore potential money management options and how to best make the decision, click here.