You’ve worked hard and saved for years. Now it’s time to choose a financial advisor. But this process is more than just picking someone you trust your financial wellness to. The process is about selecting a financial life partner. You should be able to trust this person is looking out for your well-being and is working to align your assets and liabilities with your future goals. You will need an ongoing relationship with this person and good communication that ensures your hard-earned savings are working for you.
Digitalization of products and services across industries has created a lot of confusion for people seeking financial assistance. The two main options for financial advice are online robo-advisors and traditional human advisors. Let’s look at how these two options differ.
Robo Advisors
Robo advisors offer a primarily digital service with little to no human interaction. They focus on low-cost investment management based on answers solely from a short questionnaire. An algorithm then considers your answers and builds a portfolio to meet your risk tolerance.
The benefits of a robo-advisor:
Low cost and easy to implement: It’s no frills and no customization.
Helps get younger people saving who might not be saving already.
Traditional Advisors
A traditional advisor includes professionals with a variety of titles. Some of these titles would be, stockbroker, investment advisor representative, certified financial planner, and wealth manager. All these titles are essentially the same and are communicating that the person is an actual human working for you, not a robot.
People looking to work directly with a traditional advisor should make sure the person they’re hiring operates under a fiduciary standard and has skills and training beyond the FINRA licensing tests. These people typically have credentials after their name like, CFP (Certified Financial Planner) and CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst). While these designations don’t mean they’re any better than professionals without, it is an indication that they have undergone lengthy studies and testing to earn the credentials they carry with the goal of better serving their clients and a commitment to operate at the highest ethical standard.
Benefits of working with a traditional advisor:
Custom and personalized service designed to focus on aligning your total portfolio with your goals.
A “Personal CFO” – someone who will coordinate with CPAs, Attorneys, and other professionals to ensure that contributions and distributions are being handled in accordance with your situation and goals.
Custom portfolios that can include individual stock, bond, and options holdings to target your return and risk objectives more directly.
Where Do I Go Next?
If the simplicity of a robo advisor is right for you, schedule a call and we can discuss robo options. We can help steer you towards reputable options.
If you’re thinking, a robo sounds great, but you want to know there is a human behind you, proactively thinking about your situation, let’s have a short call. As humans, our ability to serve is limited by our capacity to cultivate meaningful relationships. Knowing that our effectiveness is limited, our firm serves a select group of clients that are philosophically aligned with our approach to portfolio management. If you’re interested in starting the dialogue to see if we’re a fit, feel free to fill out the form below or give us a call at 248-290-6222.
Investment advisory services offered through Cirrus Capital LLC, a registered investment advisor.
The information on this website has been provided by Cirrus Capital LLC (“us,” “we, or “ours”) for general information purposes and nothing herein constitutes an offer to buy or sell, any security, future, swap, other instrument, or any investment product or service. It does not constitute investment, legal, accounting, tax or other professional advice or services and is presented without any representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of the information.
Registration as an investment advisor does not constitute an endorsement of the firm by securities regulators and does not mean that the advisor has attained a particular level of skill or ability.
Investment products are not FDIC insured, not bank guaranteed and may lose value. No investment strategy can guarantee to outperform an index, equal past performance levels, profit, or protect from a loss. The firm only transacts business in states and countries where it is properly registered, or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Account opening subject to custodian requirements.
Copyright © 2022 Cirrus Capital All rights reserved