Questions to Ask Your Current Advisor
Here are some pertinent questions to ask your current Advisor, taken from our book, Stress-Free Investing. If you don’t have an Investment Advisor or decide to change Advisors, skip this list and use the Questions to Find a Free Market Coach in our book.
The Free Market (FM) answers you want to hear are in parentheses. To save time and energy, you might want to contact your current Advisor on the phone and ask the questions—start at the top and work down.
If your Advisor gets the answers all correct, you may want to ask why s/he hasn’t told you this information before. If you want to learn more about how we invest and help you, reach out and connect with us. Nobody knows God’s timing or His plans… so keep moving forward.
- Who does my portfolio’s quarterly rebalancing?
(FM Answer: Your Money Manager) - What is the turnover of each of my growth mutual funds?
(FM Answer: The higher the turnover, the higher the internal costs within the mutual fund.) - How are you held accountable for ensuring my different mutual funds are working together and efficiently?
(FM Answer: Free Market Funds use structured institutional asset class mutual funds which have money managers that have the same investment philosophy, which is to buy and hold the fund’s assets) - How do you measure and control my portfolio’s risk?
(FM Answer: Your risks are measured by the investment analysis. Your risks are controlled by keeping your funds invested in efficient institutional domestic and international asset class mutual funds and applying both the Modern Portfolio Theory diversification and the Three-Factor Model to your portfolio.) - How truly diversified is my current portfolio?
- How many unique stocks and bonds do I own, and how do I own them? (FM Answer: You own composite funds that hold asset-class funds that have over 24,231 unique stocks and bonds)
- How many countries am I invested in? (FM Answer: 79 different free countries)
- How many different asset classes am I invested in?
(FM Answer: 21 different asset class categories)
- Is my portfolio completely liquid, or do I have surrender charges? (FM Answer: Our portfolios are 100% liquid. They don’t have front or backloads and never any trail fees, penalties, or surrender charges.)
- How are you paid, and what did you earn off my accounts last year?
(FM Answer: Advisory fees are reported on your portfolio’s quarterly statements. Advisory fees and Custodian fees are reported quarterly.)
An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.
Proverbs 24:26
Maria J. Kuitula, a Free Market Coach, co-authored the book Stress-Free Investing, available at Amazon.com. She is the President of Wordhouse Wealth Coaching and can be reached at 616-460-6518 or MJK@WordhouseWealthCoaching.com. For QUESTION LISTS and INVESTOR EDUCATION VIDEOS, go to www.WordhouseWealthCoaching.com.
