How to Find an Investment Counselor

An investment counselor should become an integral part of your advisory team as you acquire wealth and look for ways to invest it both long- and short-term. Before making recommendations, your investment counselor should factor in your over-all financial plan, the resources that are available for investment, as well as your tolerance for risk. Many people delay the process of finding an investment counselor. Instead, they rely on their own instincts or they continue with the same investments they chose when they were younger.

Difficulty:

Challenging

Instructions

1. Talk with your friends. Many of them have undoubtedly chosen an investment counselor and they are happy with the results, and they will be pleased that you have sought their advice. Once you have gotten from them the names of two or three, make an effort to interview each before making your decision. Such a “chemistry check” is vitally important because your decision will have a serious affect on your assets.

2. Talk with your banking contact. If your are like most people, you have called upon your bank to invest idle funds, or occasionally you have come to them for a personal or mortgage loan. Since they already know you, they are a good source of information about investment counselors. Once again, if they recommend several people, do a “chemistry check.”

3. Ask your stock brokerage firm for their recommendations. It may be that they have Investment Counselors on staff that can be of help, or they might recommend people not associated with them, at all. A word of caution is in order, however. If you have any doubt about the objectivity in the advice you may get from their own people, choose someone not associated with the company, because you will doubt their suggestions right from the beginning.

4. Ask your financial planner the extent of his/her expertise. Many have received years of training to be both, so you might have access to an investment counselor without knowing it. Once again, be comfortable with the investment advice you receive, particularly if that person is affiliated with a financial services company, thereby calling his objectivity into question.

Tips & Warnings

• Nothing is forever. You may find that you have chosen the wrong investment counselor. If that has happened to you, simply begin the process of finding another.