Back in 2006 there was media frenzy in the financial makrets about a new study that said financial advisors are useless and the study would change the way investors invested their money. What happened? Nothing seemed to change? In fact I can’t even find the article, which was written by "Donald Moine. "The Study of the Decade." Morningstar Advisor 22 June 2006." the link in broke and a search of Mornignstar.com yielded no return on such a thing. I'll copy and paste a synopsis of the article which suggested financial advisors are useless and do-it-yourself investors are better off than using an advisor. My question is if it was so powerful, and so convincing where did it go, and why did it not have the powerful-reforming change on investors and how they invest their money?
I have one theory; people want help in everything they do, and investors certainly can't handle (on their own) the media driven markets that tell everyone the sky is falling. I do know this much after following the market for over twenty years and dealing directly with investors for over ten years. From the 1930's to the present we have had times in the market where the media says "this is the big one boys, it's all going away." But it always recovers stronger, and in the end we always have growth. The question investors need to ask themselves is "Why do I expect it to always keeping going without any problems". Investors need to understand the importance of Asset Allocation and make sure they have a good advisor who is conducting portfolio reviews quarterly.
BCT study where did you go !
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/boomerbucks/20061206_investment_advice_a1.asp
Shawn Tierney
financialjoe.com