I have been stressing the imminent (now blatant) inflation with my investment counselor, and what can be done to protect my retirement savings. I suggested TIPS, but since that would cut out the middle-man fees, he was against it. I believe now, that government backed retirement funds may be in great jeopardy with the "Great Reset" looming. Does anyone here have REAL financial investment experience who can suggest a good plan going forward to deal with likely higher inflation, and possible financial meltdown? (and please, don't post, "Just buy gold!")
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Not a financial advisor, not necessarily good financial advice, I have not seriously studied the markets in a decade, etc, etc...
Strong diversification #1.
Personal, perennial favorites: Utilities and stocks w strong dividend history vs growth history. I was also always fond of REITs. Don't see why you shouldn't include TIPS. Diversification into real, direct property and physical assets like gold and silver. Some commodity indexes. All the simple stuff.
Diversification, necessity of product (transportation, construction, manufacturing, food, retail) and dividends, dividends, dividends.
Before the complete systemic manipulation of the markets by algorithms, dividend investing was always pushed as a solid, stable investment. Then the computers got greedy.
Again, all IMO. This is how to invest to protect your wealth, not strike it rich. Striking it rich is a whale's game to me. I'm very conservative in investing.
I told my advisor to put me in the most conservative fund possible, totally out of stock market, and as a result, I mostly missed out on the past 18 months of the totally bonkers stock market rise :) I have had a small percent in the market since March, and that has helped to pay for the broker fees :) The thing is, the fund fees have been about equal to any appreciation, so the fund managers are making as much as me by simply shoving a few electrons around :)
I don't know your asset total, but I wouldn't say just throw it all into one conservative fund. Diversify, especially if you have sizeable wealth. One with a sizeable nest egg wouldn't want to ignore a standard index fund, missing out on the market completely. You'd diversify as I stated above.
I don't want to say it sounds like you have a crappy broker, but it sounds like you have a crappy broker who's making you do all the leg work, while profiting handsomely off of it.
I'm not a financial advisor, never was. Met a lot of them, didn't respect most of their abilities. You should look into moving your assets elsewhere, but (maybe mistaken) if the fees are cutting into your investments that much you might not have a huge amount of assets at play here?
Again, all the stuff I suggested is long term "conservative". I would hedge (ha!) a guess you were put into "all term" conservative, like bond markets?
This kind of thing is like finding a good "expert" in any field - except in finance you face not only mediocrity in service, but literal incentivization from the top to keep your assets moving to generate fees. So bad advice on top of bad advice.
Dont know you level of financial literacy, but I always found the Motley Fools basic books fairly enlightening when I was starting out. Read them for the fundamentals (types of accounts, where to open the, etc), but be sure to apply your own best judgement and instinct to any actual "picking advice" they may profer.
From there, get some introductory books on "Fundemental Analysis".
Ok, thanks. My advisor agreed to take my wife and I on, even though we have fairly low assets. Most of his customers are millionaire to multi-millionaires; he took us on more as a favor. He doesn't directly make money off our accounts, but the investment companies probably pay him based on some volume he puts into them. All the fees I see are from the funds themselves, at around 1%, and my money only made about 2%, so I netted about 1%, which is well below inflation rate.