Where to Put Your Money We Judge Advice and Brokerage Service at Major Financial Companies
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COVER STORY Where to put your money We judge advice and brokerage service at major financial companies eposit $75,000 or more into ings or income analysis prepared by an ad- how clients seeking advice are served. And a new or existing brokerage ac- visory counsel under the supervision of a we asked major financial-services compa- count at Charles Schwab and certified financial planner. Vanguard of- nies to prepare investment plans based on you could be eligible for a new fers a free plan by a CFP if you transfer or the profiles of five of those staff members. DAndroid smart phone. Move your money roll over at least $100,000. Two independent financial planners and to TD Ameritrade and get 60 days of Whether you’re a seasoned investor, a commission- free online trading and a pos- newbie, or someone retesting the waters sible bonus of up to $600. Bank of Ameri- after a scary loss, financial-services com- 1 DID YOU KNOW? ca’s Merrill Edge has up to $500 waiting panies want your business. But aside from for anyone opening a new IRA. potential incentives, what will you get for At Fidelity and Schwab, clients can get moving your accounts? Is the service up to a complimentary investment plan created par? Is even free advice worth your time? by a financial adviser. Merrill Edge has a Consumer Reports investigated what similar offer for clients with less than financial-services companies are really $250,000 in “investable assets”—stocks, providing to their customers. We surveyed bonds, and mutual funds, for instance. our online subscribers about their experi- That’s37% the percentage of survey respondents who selected their brokerage Establishing, transferring, or rolling over ences with their brokers. We sent staff based on a recommendation from family, $100,000 or more to T. Rowe Price entitles members into brokerage offices in New friends, or a professional. you to a free asset-allocation plan and sav- York and Washington state to experience NEGLEY KEITH ILLUSTRATIONS: 20 consumer reports february 2012 their teams evaluated the appropriateness ents’ interests ahead of their own and hats and be held to the suitability stan- of the advice in the companies’ plans. disclose all conflicts of interest. Brokers dard when selling products to follow Our results reveal good news and cau- are held to a suitability standard, mean- through on their recommendations.) tionary notes. If you’re an active investor, ing only that their recommendations There’s no arguing with the price, but like most of the subscribers who respond- must be suitable for you. So a broker could we wondered whether free advice was ed to our survey, you can feel good about suggest a particular mutual fund that fits worth consumers’ time. So in late sum- the level of service and help you’ll get at your asset-allocation needs but has higher mer and early fall last year, seven Con- major U.S. brokerages, we found. We also sumer Reports employees in New York discovered that investors of all stripes can You’ll need to have and Washington state went as themselves get free, basic investment plans from sev- to branch offices or websites of banks and eral financial companies. But to make the an account before investment companies where they held most of that advice, you’ll need to under- accounts and asked each for an invest- stand the process and be aware of the you can get free ment plan. They didn’t mention that they plans’ limitations. investment advice. also were doing research for a CR article. Highlights of our three-pronged inves- We also sent profiles and financial in- tigation include the following: fees than other, comparable options. formation for five of the testers, who were • Our readers were very satisfied with 10 of (Complicating matters, brokers might also not identified, to four major financial 13 major brokerages. USAA’s brokerage be “dually registered” as investment ad- companies—Charles Schwab, Citibank, arm led in overall satisfaction. Scottrade, visers. And as advisers, they’re held to the Fidelity, and T. Rowe Price. The companies an online broker, and Vanguard, the fiduciary standard, but they can switch received identical information but were mutual-fund giant, also scored very highly overall as well. • In our field test, participants encoun- tered some questionable sales tactics. One Pitches, hedges, and fudges: What to look out for staff member was shown a chart on a port- Whether you’re paying for advice or some other way. Ask on your first visit. folio’s performance that omitted the sig- getting it free, keep an eye out for these And once you see the adviser’s detailed nificant impact of fees. Another tester was red flags seen by our testers who investment recommendation, ask again pitched a complicated annuity product shopped recently for investment plans: for a full accounting of the fees involved though the adviser knew little about her. with purchasing the investments, holding • Plans prepared for us by Citibank and Variable annuity pitch. One tester in her them over time, and selling them. T. Rowe Price had somewhat more appro- mid-50s and focused on early retirement priate advice. Two expert financial plan- was offered a Prudential variable annuity Target-date-fund recommendation. ners analyzed 20 investment plans created at her first meeting with a Citibank If you don’t have a large retirement nest adviser. Variable annuities, marketed to egg, your adviser might suggest a for us by Citibank, Fidelity, Schwab, and preretirees seeking guaranteed income, target-date fund, which is a portfolio of T. Rowe Price, and judged them about are complex insurance products that can stock and bond funds based on your equally good. Citi and T. Rowe Price include costly embedded fees. “A variable expected retirement date. Over time the earned somewhat higher marks for the annuity has a number of tax- and asset mix shifts to favor bonds. Target- appropriateness of investment recom- investment-related features that would date funds appear to be good options for mendations. Citibank’s approach toward demand extensive analysis before a investors who want to manage their own planning was deemed more comprehen- recommendation is made,” said David accounts with little fuss. But the sive than the others’. Yeske, a certified financial planner who Consumer Reports Money Lab’s recent served as one of our project judges. If an study of 156 target-date funds found that Still, our judges found inappropriate adviser brings this up after just meeting high expenses were one drag on their advice in several plans. They also found you, find someone else. performance. Of the 26 fund families that most of the documents to be filled with have offered target-date funds for at least boilerplate language and short on real, ac- Focus on proprietary funds. Some four years, more than half had funds with tionable advice. testers received recommendations expense ratios exceeding 1 percent of that included mainly funds from the assets, on average. (Vanguard’s index- Judging the free advice investment company they were visiting. based target-date funds in our study were We learned that free investment advice No surprise there. But always ask what the cheapest, with average expenses other, similar alternatives are available, below 0.2 percent.) Ask the adviser to from financial companies is not always and at what cost; you’ll want funds with lay out the costs and alternatives. free. To be eligible, you have to have an ac- low expense ratios. Sometimes the house count, and some companies require a brand might be the best option. Silence on fiduciary duty. None of the specified level of assets. branch-office and phone advisers at the Most of the financial advisers we en- Sealed lips on compensation. Few of brokerages and banks mentioned fiduciary countered at that entry level appear to be the advisers our testers met in branch duty—that is, an obligation to act in the brokers (also referred to as registered rep- offices volunteered how they were best interest of the client. We surmise that resentatives) and not certified financial compensated. You have a right to know most were acting as brokers, who need whether the adviser is being paid a salary, only make "suitable" recommendations. planners. The distinction is important: a commission based on sales, a If your adviser doesn’t volunteer his or her CFPs pledge to adhere to a fiduciary stan- percentage of the assets managed, or credentials, ask for them. dard, meaning they must put their cli- february 2012 www.ConsumerReports.org 21 COVER STORY WHERE TO PUT YOUR MONEY allowed to e-mail the participants addi- sets, or the right kinds of assets, were tional questions through a reporter. Tes- Our test subjects sometimes rebuffed. Katerina, 33, who ters also filled out the companies’ faced both subtle wished to roll over a five-figure Merrill questionnaires, which asked about their 401(k) to a Merrill IRA, found that by law tolerance for risk and other concerns. and strong she couldn’t get advice until she moved (Four companies—JPMorgan Chase, Mer- sales pitches. that money. When a tester with a Citibank rill Lynch/Bank of America, Vanguard, account asked an adviser for free advice and Wells Fargo—declined to participate.) vid Yeske, CFP, is managing director of without committing to moving additional Yeske Buie, a fee-only planning firm in money to Citi, the rep asked her, “Why What our testers found San Francisco and Vienna, Va., past chair- would I do that?” (The rep later provided Two seasoned certified financial planners man of the Financial Planning Associa- advice after the tester showed her finan- and their staffs judged the plans the com- tion, and distinguished adjunct professor cial statement.) panies sent back on a number of criteria, at Golden Gate University, focusing on fi- At Fidelity, clients with an account of such as appropriateness of investment nancial and insurance planning.