Are financial advisors worth it?

DrewChan said:
I plan on leaving the country for good after about a year - less if its feasible. Probably for either the UK or Europe. My provident and savings will be for the move and setting my life up.

I will have about R170k in provident and will be able to put away about R140k in the next year.

My main worry is the rand against euro/pound- which I have another thread open about

I have no interest in "growing" it to any great extent but rather just retaining its value in the event of a currency fallout
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All the more reason to get a Financial Advisor/Planner so that they can facilitate you in this move.

They might very well even recommend cashing it out now and putting it in an international fund that you can draw from on the other side.

Or depending on where you are going arrange it in such a way that it's compliant etc.
 
DrewChan said:
Dumb comment. For every suggestion there is a counter suggestion from someone who has been burned by aforementioned advice.
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No one has ever been burnt following John Bogle's advice.
This is a link to the greatest investing learning resource on the planet, inspired by John Bogle's philosophy:
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php
If you spend time reading through the resources and discussions there you will know much more about the subject than the average investment adviser.

In the mean time you can do a lot worse than trying Sygnia's new Robo Adviser:
https://www.sygnia.co.za/roboadvisor/sygnia-roboadvisor
 
Masataka said:
Avoid Liberty - they'll murder you on fees and suboptimal products. Managing or even just viewing your portfolio with them is horrendous as their portals are completely out dated and buggy.
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Avoid all insurance companies for investment advice.
 
Verde said:
No one has ever been burnt following John Bogle's advice.
This is a link to the greatest investing learning resource on the planet, inspired by John Bogle's philosophy:
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php
If you spend time reading through the resources and discussions there you will know much more about the subject than the average investment adviser.

In the mean time you can do a lot worse than trying Sygnia's new Robo Adviser:
https://www.sygnia.co.za/roboadvisor/sygnia-roboadvisor
Click to expand...

Thanks for the links
 
cguy said:
I spoke to a financial advisor last year for the first time. I made sure he was fee only (no commission - that's a big conflict of interest). He basically didn't know anything more than I did, and less in some cases. Basically:
- use your tax advantages saving allowances
- for higher expected returns and higher risk buy some ETFs or unit trusts
- for lower expected returns and lower risk put your money into fixed deposits (or CDs or treasury bonds in the US)
- mix the above two to get into your comfort zone

He wanted to draw up an investment plan for me (at a rate of $250/hour for 30 hours). I said, no thanks.
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:wtf:
 
DrewChan said:
I plan on leaving the country for good after about a year - less if its feasible. Probably for either the UK or Europe. My provident and savings will be for the move and setting my life up.

I will have about R170k in provident and will be able to put away about R140k in the next year.

My main worry is the rand against euro/pound- which I have another thread open about

I have no interest in "growing" it to any great extent but rather just retaining its value in the event of a currency fallout
Click to expand...

If you are with FNB you might be able open a $ or Euro account (its under add new account) and start saving there...
 
I had a good one, that helped with investments and insurance policies.

She decided to leave and do something else.

Now I am stuck with one that doesn't interact with me at all.

But the money of the policy still goes off each month.

*life*
 
Insurance companies have destroyed their clients financially for decades with high fees - it was only when investment companies (like Allan Gray/Coronation/Sygnia) came into the RA market with unit trust RA's that they started lowering their fees as a result of the competition. So to me they are scum from an ethics viewpoint.

Apart from that:
1. Their brokers are tied agents who are forced to sell their employer's products. What you want is an independent broker who can advise on the best product in the market for your needs, regardless of who supplies it. Investment companies tend to make use of independents. The poor client struggles to differentiate as insurance company brokers present themselves as independent. You have to read the small print to get to the truth.

2. Insurance co. brokers will try to sell the product on which they earn the highest commission - this is almost always an investment product in the form of an insurance policy - so they will sell old style policy RA's in stead of the modern flexible unit trust RA's, or policy endowments rather than RA endowments. These old products are much more expensive, especially if the losses people incur because of the inflexibility is taken into account.

3. These insurance company brokers are mainly trained to sell life/disability insurance. Their investment knowledge is dangerous to say the least.
 
DrewChan said:
As above, I am heading into a job where, for the first time in a while I will have a fairly large cash surplus each month. Should I just shove into a 32 day call account or are financial advisors worth looking into?
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Your lifestyle will reduce that surplus in no time
 
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