Are you looking for a financial advisor? There are many good ones out there. The best will confirm that they help their clients save by making the right investment choices based on the risks they’re willing to assume. Regardless, it’s still very tough to evaluate a prospective financial advisor.
That’s because most of them are no longer strictly independent. They usually work for well-respected firms like Raymond James, Vanguard and Northwestern Mutual. They get their research from corporate factories of economists and market analysts. They’re told, based on certain risk factors that they assign to their clients, where to put their clients’ money. The reputable ones get paid on asset values, so the more your portfolio rises, the more money they make. The industry is pretty vanilla.
