Like the header says, anybody trust Fisher with 500k? I’m handling most of my own money and I don’t need income as I head into retirement but I’m considering Fisher for their entry amount. Cliff notes are they charge 1.25% flat fee divided up by quarters. Alternatively I’m thinking of just BRKA (Berkshire) at 500k, either way would be a set it and forget it approach for me. I’d keep my own trading account and have a separate emergency fund.
Anybody have experience with Fisher Investments?
I don’t have any experience with him, but have long been flooded with his mailings. I am not impressed.
I think the 1.25% is too high. I have Fidelity managing part of my IRA and their fee is about half of that. I suggest looking into their managed portfolios. They have gone down less this year than my own choices.
I think Schwab also has similar managed accounts you could look into.
“We do better when our clients do better”
With no basis in the game they will also do ok when a client does worse.
The way they sell the fee is they average 2%+ higher than a S&P index fund every year they’ve existed, which makes the fee worth it. Fisher has gotten beat up this year but they expect a strong rebound last 2 months of the year.
I know some medium worth individuals and while many follow Ken, nobody admits to being in his fund.
That is true, but they won’t execute trades just to drive up their fees. The fee is what it is.
Is that net all expenses?
No expenses, that’s all in.
The market could easily go down another 20%. While I’m long term with this money, it’s not gonna fun if I look at the account in January and I’m already down 20%. But I wouldn’t be dumb enough to pull the money, that just locks in losses.
So around $6k a year on $500k, that’s pretty good. Is it you giving them your money and they manage all of it or can you also make your own trades?
BTW if I had a dollar for every Fisher ad I’ve seen on Facebook over the last few months I could probably retire. Check the reviews and do some research, they might be the way to go.
Told them I have no ethical or religious conditions and I don’t need to pull a set amount as income per year. I’m handing them the money, in theory I could tell them to sell a given position but my guess is they don’t like that happening.
The fee is paid quarterly, so if it’s flat for the last 3 months then I pay them $1500 on January 1. And there’s no contract, I can dissolve the relationship at any time.
I would make sure that their core values align with yours. Are they going to take on risky investments for the sake of being ESG friendly?
The recent trend with investment firms is trying to go carbon free and this includes your investments. You hand over your money and they get to invest however what best fits their values.
Not the case here, they invest that way if I have those concerns but I don’t. They’d favor income including bonds if I specified but I didn’t. They’re all about numbers, they don’t care about lung cancer or whether a companies employees have health care or not.
Yes I did give Fisher some IRA money to manage.
Also note that I did have a fairly nice position in BRKB a while back and it did well, but an advisor thought better and it went away.
Back to Fisher with a couple of notes… First, Ken Fisher hates annuities with a passion; says he would rather die and goto Hell before putting a client in an annuity! Hates annuities so much that he will pay off your surrender fees! That is done over time, with it being applied to your fee to him.
Yes Fisher lets you direct what to not invest in, and presumably what you want. I ordered no Chicom stocks, and when they bought some Disney I declared it a no-go. Would do the same for Moderna.
Then, they take over your Schwab account. Whether they use any other custodian I am not sure; don’t think so. It works fine for me; my account number did not change and I have the same access as before Fisher because advisor. As noted, my account is an IRA. Being an old goat I have an RMD, and thus far I have given all of the RMD as a QCD, so neither I nor my charity pay tax on it. The mechanics of this are at this point well known to me and I just did my first draw on the Fisher account. I make sure there is enough slush and order a check to my charity. Fisher did not interfere, so I will not fire them over that…
They have relationships with the major no fee trading houses. They wanted to take over my TD account (owned by Schwab) and I declined, rather they are going to setup a separate TD account and I’m funding that. If it goes well, I’ll give them control of more money.
And I had meant to say I could buy BRKB instead, this money would buy exactly one A share.
In theory the concept of we do better when you do better sounds great. However at the full service financial firms you have a choice of two types of accounts. One is a fiduciary like Fisher where you pay an annual fee based on a percentage of your portfolios value but don’t pay any commissions. The other is a traditional brokerage account where you pay a small annual fee but also pay commissions. I have a traditional brokerage account because it costs me a fraction of what I would have to pay if I switched to their fiduciary account.
Do they reduce fees if they don’t beat the S&P index?
I would choose a fund like SCHD before I would choose BRKA. You do need income in retirement and you are going to have to pay the fees from somewhere.
Of course not, fee still applies. Their ‘we do better’ tagline refers to growing your portfolio…1.25% of a million generates a higher fee than 750k.
I’m kind of lost with what to do as I’m heading into retirement. I certainly don’t need income and I’ll be ditching my mortgage and moving in with my gf. I don’t feel like I need to leave my kids a bunch of money, rather help them as they need it. I imagine I’ll just watch the money grow until I’m forced to take RMDs.
That schd does have a nice dividend, it beats the various Aristocrats ETFs.
I have owned SCHD for years and have no plans to sell any. I’ve added a little more as the price has slid.
I just picked up a little schd, at a 52 week low after the fed news. 4.3% dividend is too high to ignore.