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01-17-2007, 08:26 PM	#1
YAhoo67 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 18	AG Edwards Can anyone of the actual advisors and other smart people give me opinions and experiences with this company? And what others in the undustry thing about them? They seem to be ideal if you need a full service broker. They have no proprietary products and do not sell insurance. Are there some firms that are looked down upon compared to others? For example many people I have consulted with say that edward jones is a joke, but then I seem to hear good things about AG, UBS, Smith Barney, Merril Lynch and Morgan Stanley. Is it that these five are considered the 'real' firms with more qualified Advisors over all the other competitors. If anyone has the time can they enlighten me? y

01-18-2007, 01:13 PM	#2
1_more_opai Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: somewhere in texas Posts: 1,455	any company that does not either broker or at least advise on insurance is a farce to begin with. proper financial planning is founded on cash liquidity, wealth generation, and risk management (insurance products). if your "advisor" cant advise on all of these issues, then they are certainly not professionals. personally, i think there are three better choices than the list you provided. however, if you were to only choose from the ones you listed, i would lean strongly toward UBS and stay away from the others in their entirety. no matter which company (and which individual) you work with, check them out at www.sec.gov and check their regulatory record. my three that i would choose from if i were you are: New York Life Northwest Mutual Raymond James Financial after looking at the companies themselves, look HARDER at the advisor him or herself. the PERSON is JUST as important (if not moreso) than the company you select. 1MO

01-18-2007, 02:35 PM	#3
YAhoo67 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 18	Sorry I looked into it and AG Edwards does offer insurance it just has no proprietary products accross the board. Can you give me a direct opinion on AG Edwards since you are in the business? I tend to totally disagree with your recommendation on Northwest and NYL but Raymond James seems to be very similar to AG Edwards which I am very curious about. Now why were none of the firms you recommended on this list? http://www.smartmoney.com/brokers/i...ust2006&pgnum=3 AG Edwards was and suprisingly RJF was not, but anyways sorry to be annoying about this but I am in direct discussion with an AG guy because of great things I have heard about it and I just need some other different opinions and points of view. My situation is that I do not need insurance of any sort and tend to not like companies with proprietary products which is why I have considered even LPL and RJF but now I am really considering moving everything to AG. The branch manager also told me that AG's advisors have noproduct quotas but they try to keep around the best quality people. Thanks again for your time, I greatly appreciate it. And sorry if this sounds like I am rambling or just trying to play devils advocate; I just really found that AG was a perfect match and is almost too good to be true. y

01-18-2007, 03:15 PM	#4
YAhoo67 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 18	http://registeredrep.com/mag/financ...dwards_quietly/

01-19-2007, 11:19 AM

BlankenshipFP

Harold Hecuba Productions

Join Date: Sep 2004

Location: New Berlin, Illinois

Posts: 934

One of the reasons those guys 1MO mentioned weren't on your list from the article is because that article was specifically about brokers. Your original question was about advisors, and, quoting from the Smart Money article you linked to above, here is the difference:

Quote:

But there's a big catch, and don't expect your broker to tell you about it. Even if he provides a financial plan for you, a broker is still a salesperson who is not legally required to act in your best financial interest. Traditionally, a person who gets paid a fee for providing a financial plan is required by law to act in your financial interest — legally, that adviser is called a fiduciary. But last year the Securities and Exchange Commission passed a rule that lets certain brokers provide investment advice for a fee without being held to the same legal standards as a financial planner. Traditional fee-only advisers, who are fiduciaries, have been up in arms over the rule. "You would not go to a doctor who also sells Merck products, or a lawyer who sells insurance," says Peggy Cabaniss, head of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. The brokerages insist that they are always looking out for their clients' best interests, regardless of how they are regulated.

__________________
jb

IRS CIRCULAR 230 NOTICE: To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS, we inform you that any U.S. tax advice contained in this communication (or in any attachment) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed in this communication (or in any attachment).

01-19-2007, 12:21 PM	#6
bigred Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 126	Important to note Jim, thx for that. I fail to understand the logic of getting an "FA" - or broker - who is "married" to a given company, ie one w/mutual funds or products or whatever to sell. Sure they can still be good and give good advice generally, but obviously they are going to steer you to their stuff to invest in. I want as objective of an opinion as possible.

01-19-2007, 01:57 PM	#7
1_more_opai Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: somewhere in texas Posts: 1,455	all of the three i mentioned are also INDEPENDENT! while some of them OFFER some proprietary products (actually, raymond james has none (correct me if i am wrong), none of them are compensated any more for using proprietary products. in fact, they are most likely compensated MORE for using non-proprietary products. the difference is that you wont find better products PERIOD than the life products (i know you are not in the market for insurance like Long Term Care, Disability, Life) than those offered by NW Mutual and NY Life. AND, advisors at other firms can never offer these products. while advisory personnel at NY Life and NW Mutual can offer what other advisory firms offer. also, while i never disagree with blankenship, i would offer this "additional information". the advisor who works at a large mutual insurance company (i named two) and operates a practice as an RIA is only BROKERING through the company. he or she would still have a fiduciary responsibility to clients. there are TONS of independent advisors who simply BROKER through large mutual insurance companies yet still offer products through MANY outside companies not affiliated with their insurance company. through all the rambling, i hope you got the central point - that is that you dont understand who is and who is not "married" to a given company. this lack of understanding will prove catastrophic if you make an uniformed decision based on it. finally, in my opinion, i am less concerned with "objectivity" than i am with "education". i would rather be with a "biased" advisor as long as he educates me to his bias and to the pros and cons of the solutions he offers. 1MO

01-19-2007, 10:56 PM	#8
BlankenshipFP Harold Hecuba Productions Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: New Berlin, Illinois Posts: 934	That's a key point, 1MO - a point with nuances that most folks don't recognize. An insurance representative who operates his business as a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) does in fact have a responsibility to operate as a fiduciary... this is due to his RIA registration, which is precisely the issue raised by the Merrill Lynch rule (alluded to in the article excerpt above). As an RIA, it doesn't matter what other affiliation the advisor has, he is held to a fiduciary standard. Most stockbrokers (not insurance brokers) are not RIAs. Their primary job is to sell stocks (and funds, and bonds), not to provide advice. Thus, their advice is not necessarily in the best inerest of the consumer - and usually you can even find evidence of this on their websites (look around for something like "conflict of interest"). __________________ jb IRS CIRCULAR 230 NOTICE: To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS, we inform you that any U.S. tax advice contained in this communication (or in any attachment) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed in this communication (or in any attachment).

01-20-2007, 05:27 PM	#9
1_more_opai Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: somewhere in texas Posts: 1,455	you know me jim, im all about nuance. 1MO

01-20-2007, 09:11 PM	#10
Athena53 Spam Swatter Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Suburb of Kansas City, MO Posts: 347	I find e-pinions.com a good source of information- here's a link to reviews on AG Edwards. http://www.epinions.com/finc-Financ...-E-A_G__Edwards BTW, I don't know why Edward Jones is "a joke"- I've got 90% of my investments with them and I'm extremely happy. I looked over their e-pinions reviews and they're overall complimentary with the exception of a few who seem to have gotten bad brokers- every firm has them. On that site I wrote a rebuttal to the Feb 6, 2006 review that claimed they liked thier investors uneducated. Not this one!

01-22-2007, 12:12 PM

#11

BlankenshipFP

Harold Hecuba Productions

Join Date: Sep 2004

Location: New Berlin, Illinois

Posts: 934

1MO - I knew that, just didn't know if everyone else knew it.

Athena53 - your experience is precisely the reason that 1MO previously said:

Quote:

after looking at the companies themselves, look HARDER at the advisor him or herself. the PERSON is JUST as important (if not moreso) than the company you select.

As with most everything in life, "your mileage may vary", "past performance does not guarantee future results", and "objects in mirror are closer than they appear". Oh, and "don't accept wooden nickels".

Best wishes...

01-22-2007, 06:44 PM	#12
YAhoo67 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 18	Thanks greatly for the discussion thus far. So noone would like to give a direct opinion on AG Edwards? based on industry experience, things read, word of mouth..etc? Second question- would you guys consider a %.40 payout rate high or low? (regarding the portion of the asset based fee that would go to an advisor) And what would you guys consider high? low? and average? in terms of the payout rate

01-22-2007, 08:20 PM	#13
1_more_opai Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: somewhere in texas Posts: 1,455	yahoo, it is not that we are ignoring you intentionally, it is just that so many of the questions you are asking "depend". i assume you mean 4 tenths of a percent as a management fee paid to an advisor under an AUM agreement. this is a good rate, but higher or lower may be more appropriate for your situation - we just dont know your situation well enought to answer. as for AG Edwards, most of us dont like to bash on a financial services company unless it is AIG or Primerica (well, at least i dont). 1MO

01-22-2007, 11:27 PM	#14
YAhoo67 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 18	Haha, I understand about AIG and Primerica ... About the management fee- %.40 is what the advisor would get out of the management fee... for example someone charges %1.25 and he takes home %.40 of that....my question is is that good? bad? average?

02-13-2007, 02:46 PM	#15
1_more_opai Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: somewhere in texas Posts: 1,455	no, that sucks. if the guy (or gal) who is MANAGING your portfolio is only receiving about a third of the asset fee - they are getting ripped off. they do 90% of the work for 33% of the pay. again, i am not bashing on AGE. however, when i started leaving my first broker dealer, i looked for a year at MANY MANY MANY places. this included looking at AGE. there were TWO primary reasons i opted not to go with them. your point - compensation, was one of them. this is important because you want YOUR advisor to be around for as long as you are. it is difficult for an advisor to transition from one broker dealer to another - even when done perfectly. you dont want to go through that and you will if you sign on with someone who is GREAT but their firm is not. second, the back office support offered by AGE was ... er ... lacking. we financial advisors are not the oracles of all truth and knowledge. sometimes, we need someone with more experience in a given area to lend a hand. AGE had some of this but i accidentally found a company that this was their first priority. they worked FOR the advisors. in the end, this makes sense as if the advisor becomes wildly successful ... so does the company. and it works! so in sum, AGE was not right for me. but, they may be perfect for you. good luck. 1MO

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