Get Wise to Your Advisor: How to Reach Your Investment Goals Without Getting Ripped Off

Get Wise to Your Advisor: How to Reach Your Investment Goals Without Getting Ripped Off

by Steven D. Lockshin
Released September 2013
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781118700730

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Book description

The financial services world is changing. Technology is enabling an automated approach to investing that should bring down the cost of commodity services. No longer do you have to fund the lifestyle of a broker or advisor to have him tell you how to diversify or where to find the next investment that cannot be missed. This book will provide the tools for calculators that tell you most of what you need to know; from how much insurance you need to have to how you should diversify. The book will help readers with the following:

  • Understand what you have

  • Plan your long-term goals

  • Start to save (maximizing your 401k)

  • Reduce debt

  • Run your Monte Carlo Simulation

  • Determine the appropriate asset allocation

  • Set up your auto-rebalancing and periodically (annually, perhaps) re-examining your asset allocation to account for globalization

  • Deploy the asset mix through low cost, tax-efficient strategies

  • Look at it once per year

This book will provide a better understanding of your investment decisions. But, we all cannot be do-it-yourselfers. Advisors serve as an important resource for consumers when they are both capable and understand their duty to serve you, the customer, first. To complement their moral station, they must have the skills to deliver appropriate advice. The book, much like the company Steve founded, will simplify standards for consumers and audit advisors to those standards.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Preface
  7. Chapter 1: Is This Any Way to Choose an Advisor?
    1. Bad Financial Medicine
    2. A Murky Industry
    3. “You Should Meet My Guy”
    4. Key Points
  8. Chapter 2: Wall Street’s Dirty Secrets
    1. The More Things Change . . .
    2. “You Don’t Understand . . .”
    3. Misplaced Interests
    4. Brokers and Advisors
    5. Wall Street Brokers versus Main Street Consumers
    6. Peddling Products
    7. Omission versus Commission
    8. Key Points
  9. Chapter 3: The Wall Street Whitewash
    1. Image Is Everything
    2. Shopping Shortcuts
    3. Vegas Rules
    4. Key Points
  10. Chapter 4: Hold Your Nose: Other Advisor Options
    1. Bank-Based Advisors
    2. Private Banking and Trust Departments
    3. Asset Managers
    4. Insurance Salesmen
    5. Fee-Only Planners
    6. Other Options
    7. Technology’s Triumph
    8. Key Points
  11. Chapter 5: The Case for Independent RIAs
    1. The Trouble with Fee-Only Advisors
    2. The Case for Independent RIAs
    3. Buyer Beware
    4. Do All RIAs Live Up to Their Title?
    5. Disorienting Disclosure
    6. RIAs: A Good Place to Start
    7. Key Points
  12. Chapter 6: Our Lazy Brains: Why We’re So Bad at Choosing Advisors (and Investing Our Own Money)
    1. The Gut versus the Mind
    2. Salesmanship 101
    3. What You See Is All There Is
    4. My Advisor Is Handsome, So Why Am I Broke?
    5. Why We Stink at Managing Our Own Money
    6. Key Points
  13. Chapter 7: How to Be Your Own Investment Advisor
    1. Don’t Let Costs Mug Your Returns
    2. How to Win the Game by Not Playing
    3. Software-Powered Investing
    4. Math First, Emotion Second
    5. Why You (Probably) Still Need a Financial Advisor
    6. Key Points
  14. Chapter 8: Choosing an Advisor: Know What You Don’t Know
    1. You Are the Family CEO
    2. Decoding your Advisor’s
    3. After the Interview
    4. Key Points
  15. Chapter 9: Fees and Ice Cream: Baskin-Robbins Got It Right, Why Can’t We?
    1. Chocolate and Vanilla
    2. Baskin-Robbins 3 Flavors?
    3. Key Pricing Ingredients (Building a Custom Sundae)
  16. Chapter 10: Change the Game
    1. Why Wait?
  17. Afterword: Advisors in Perspective
  18. About the Author
  19. Index

Product information

  • Title: Get Wise to Your Advisor: How to Reach Your Investment Goals Without Getting Ripped Off
  • Author(s): Steven D. Lockshin
  • Release date: September 2013
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781118700730