investment adviser needed

[Beeroclock]

Very sad to hear stories about retired folks funds being eroded/destroyed by careless (bordering on negligent) IA's. For anyone with basic knowledge they are better off self-managing. Especially in this era of low fee online broking.

Some cases where IA's might come in useful is when there is a lack of confidence/high stress level (so the person needs a "professional" view, or just to rubber stamp what they are going to do anyway but with peace of mind), or to help facilitate a compromise when husband/wife have completely different ideas and risk appetites. But in these cases I would still recommend a fixed fee, advice only set-up. After you take the advice then make your own decision and implement the investments yourself so you don't give away all those fees and trailing commissions.

Definitely it can sum to a huge number over the years if you add up all those compounded fees. Unfortunately many people struggle with their day-to-day finances, let alone retirement planning for the future!

[JR8]

There are self-help investment forums out there, where people discuss DIY strategies. From the 1.01 macro 'How can I do this?', to the micro 'Might this be a good time to top-up my holding in XYZ Inc., I currently have £x holding, and am thinking of topping-up £1/2x more. Or would it be a better time to top-up ABC ?'.

I don't want or need a private client broker, I have found and accepted a plain-vanilla strategy of diversification into, blue-chip/no nasty surprises reassuringly well yielding stocks, spread over say the main 20 business sectors. If one day Mining goes down, then there's a chance Retail might go up, as funds chase a destination.

It's not about watching the portfolio day to day, or even month to month. Apart from the occasional trade fee, as this is self-invested, it hasn't cost a cent ... just a bit of commitment to research and time. It's about self-investing for the long-term in a stable/diversified way, to produce a reliable income stream (i.e. what the stock values do is 2ndary, if not immaterial, one just aims for a reliable dividend stream).

p.s. the mantra is 'Strategic Ignorance', or 'invest (after researching it) and forget'.