Fee-only

You have probably read about the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL)¹ new fiduciary rule that will impact financial advisors and their clients.

The challenge for most people today is finding the right financial advisor. The sheer number of financial professionals holding themselves out as “financial advisors,” makes it a daunting task at best. It is easier if you know what to look for, but that requires an acute sense of what exactly you want from an advisory relationship.

Once an individual or family has reached a point in their lives that they have enough income to easily pay their basic living expenses and other bills, they often desire to put their excess monthly cash flow to work in an investment.

Perhaps the most important factor in formulating your investment plan is your risk tolerance; that is, the amount of risk you’re willing to assume in order to achieve your most important objectives.

All investors – be they conservative, moderate or aggressive – need to understand that the level of returns they expect to generate is directly related to the amount of risk they are willing to assume – the higher the return, the higher the amount of risk one needs to take.

We all have a certain emotional attachment to our money, which is very logical since we work hard to earn it. We don’t always make the best financial decisions with our spending, especially when we are in heightened emotional states.