What value does an experienced financial advisor actually provide? This may surprise you, but the value of a quality financial advisor goes far beyond financial portfolio advice. It’s about guiding clients to create their financial confidence and to develop sophisticated financial behaviors.
With robo-advisors and consistent market volatility in the headlines, it’s important to realize the comprehensive advantages of working with a personal financial advisor – not a computer algorithm.
A recent study by Fidelity Investments discovered that working with an experienced financial advisor can add up to 4% higher investment returns.
In a similar study, Vanguard estimated that the quantitative value of a financial advisor is about 3% on a net basis (4% minus a 1% fee).
Additionally, a financial advisor can give you peace of mind by boosting your financial confidence in the following five areas:
- Developing a workable financial plan
- Serving as a behavioral coach
- Creating a consistent investment strategy
- Navigating retirement savings plans
- Developing a tax-sensitive investment strategy
1. Developing a workable financial plan
Regardless of life stage, our Hudson Companies team of registered investment advisors works with families and individual clients to develop financial plans that allow them to achieve several financial goals at once.
These financial goals may be paying off student loans, saving for their desired vacation, or building a reserve for their family’s retirement and emergency expenses.
After examining our client’s income, expenses, and spending habits, our expert team can help set financial priorities, identify areas where expenses can be reduced, and develop a savings plan for you to achieve both your short and long-term goals.
2. Serving as a Behavioral Coach
In a world where personal financial issues have become increasingly complex, our expert team of financial advisors helps our clients figure out what’s true or false, what works, what matters, what is useful, and what can go wrong. We customize our approach and investment solutions for each client to fit their unique financial investment needs.
Not many people have sufficient financial expertise to do that themselves — especially with an objective mindset.
As financial experts, we make sure to support our clients so they stay on course in times of financial stress to help eliminate poor financial decisions they may make.
It’s easy for them to fall victim to common cognitive biases that affect their financial decisions if they don’t have the expertise. Guiding our clients to more responsible financial behaviors can help them in a myriad of ways, such as
- realizing the benefits of long-term investments and
- enjoying the security and peace of mind that comes from having sufficient retirement funds
3. Creating a consistent investment strategy
Numerous studies show that when you manage your account yourself, you may tend to overreact to market changes by trading too frequently.
According to the 2016 Dalbar Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior Study, disciplined investors can see nearly double the returns on their investments over 20 years compared to those who try timing the market.
With many of our clients, our expert team of financial advisor guides them through selecting an appropriate mix of investments, rebalancing their investments as needed, and executing a consistent investment strategy that will keep them from making rash decisions.
4. Navigating retirement savings plans
A lack of retirement savings is a significant problem for many Americans due to longer lifespans, expensive medical care, and the rising cost of living.
Without the guidance of an experienced financial advisor, you may ignore the need for a solid retirement savings plan.
Working with an expert can help you determine the ideal time for retirement, the amount of savings needed to meet your retirement goals, and your ideal retirement age to guarantee income for life.
5. Developing a tax-sensitive investment strategy
Tax efficiency is a critical part of financial planning.
As financial planners, we often give our clients advice on financial issues such as tax-loss harvesting in brokerage and other taxable accounts, managing exposure on short-term capital gains, charitable giving, and more .
While tax issues are not the main focus of our clients’ investment strategies, financial advice on how to manage, defer, and reduce tax exposure has the potential to improve returns by as much as 1% to 2% per year for our clients’ portfolios.
Takeaway
While financial advice is often perceived as simply implementing an investment portfolio or dispensing financial guidance, that truly is just one slice of the pie.
When it comes to the five financial areas above, you can’t get any better financial guidance than having a personal financial advisor there to help you navigate the complexities of your situation.
For more information or a complimentary consultation contact the financial planning, wealth management and investment services team at Hudson Companies today.
Sources:
Fidelity Investments. (2017, Dec. 14). The value of advice [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/investing-ideas/financial-advisor-cost
Pfau, W. (2015, Jul 21) The Value of Financial Advice [Blog post] Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadepfau/2015/07/21/the-value-of-financial-advice/#71caf4ca1333
Douglass, M. (2017, Apr. 2). Yet another study shows that timing the market doesn’t work [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/02/yet-another-study-shows-that-timing-the-market-doe.aspx
Benjamin, J. (2014, Jan 27) Financial advisers can add 3 percentage points to client portfolios: Vanguard [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20140127/FREE/140129915/financial-advisers-can-add-3-percentage-points-to-client-portfolios
