Need to find a new investment firm

[mommy2allyandaveri]

Advice needed!

I have a:
traditional Roth
traditional IRA
an account made up of stocks, mutual funds and Exchange-Traded & Closed End Funds (this is basically our kids college funds)

I've had the same investment firm for many years. I've trusted my advisor to make a lot of decisions for me. For the last couple of years the kids college fund account has not really been growing at all. We've been kind of waiting for things to turn around and they just haven't. I need that money to grow, at least some. I let my advisor know that if things don't start going in the right direction, I will likely take the kids funds out. High interest savings would be doing better than this.

Apparently, he didn't like that and fired me as a client. He asked me to move my funds to another company.

I'm sure I can just roll the IRA's to a new company and that will be fine. I'm thinking about taking the kids money and just putting it in a CD or high interest account but I don't know if there are any penalties to do that and I have no idea how to that.

Does anyone have an investment firm they would suggest?
General advice?

I've been kind of on autopilot for years and not sure what to do.

 

[easyas123]

We asked our lawyer if he recommended anyone, as well as a few friends.

 

[georgina]

Advice needed!

I have a:
traditional Roth
traditional IRA
an account made up of stocks, mutual funds and Exchange-Traded & Closed End Funds (this is basically our kids college funds)

I've had the same investment firm for many years. I've trusted my advisor to make a lot of decisions for me. For the last couple of years the kids college fund account has not really been growing at all. We've been kind of waiting for things to turn around and they just haven't. I need that money to grow, at least some. I let my advisor know that if things don't start going in the right direction, I will likely take the kids funds out. High interest savings would be doing better than this.

Apparently, he didn't like that and fired me as a client. He asked me to move my funds to another company.

I'm sure I can just roll the IRA's to a new company and that will be fine. I'm thinking about taking the kids money and just putting it in a CD or high interest account but I don't know if there are any penalties to do that and I have no idea how to that.

Does anyone have an investment firm they would suggest?
General advice?

I've been kind of on autopilot for years and not sure what to do.

I don't have much advice, as I always make my own investment decisions so if I screw up I have no one but myself to blame. Do you have any local friends to ask?

The stock market was down 18-19% in 2022 so that may have stalled the returns on those funds. Definitely ups & downs there, take it out and you may miss the upside. How long until they go to college?

If you sell the kids' funds to put in something else there will be taxes on capital gains since you invested the money.

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

I have a Jr. in college now, who will be attending grad school and a Sr. in highschool. I haven't really seen a return in a while. I need that money to grow, at least a bit.

 

[disneyseniors]

I don't pretend to know much about stocks, but we have 2 roth IRA's which are wonderful. When we get ready to withdraw from them, there is no charge at all. We;ve been extremely happy with our Edward Jones rep (moderators, if telling the name of the firm is not allowed, please delete).

 

[kanerf]

I have been using Fisher for a number of years now and saw my funds grow by about 60%. There have been some losses the last two years, but I almost back to my highs.

 

[georgina]

I have a Jr. in college now, who will be attending grad school and a Sr. in highschool. I haven't really seen a return in a while. I need that money to grow, at least a bit.

Being in the time frame of using the funds, money needed in the next few years probably should not be in volatile investments like stocks.

 

[afan]

I don't pretend to know much about stocks, but we have 2 roth IRA's which are wonderful. When we get ready to withdraw from them, there is no charge at all. We;ve been extremely happy with our Edward Jones rep (moderators, if telling the name of the firm is not allowed, please delete).

I also use and like them. My advisor is great and has even reviewed my 401k fund options to make sure I'm using a good one.

 

[disneyseniors]

I also use and like them. My advisor is great and has even reviewed my 401k fund options to make sure I'm using a good one.

A good investment advisor who actually cares about you is worth their weight in gold. Ours is like that. She looks after us and is a friend too

 

[craigkerstiens]

In general an individual investment manager you're going to pay a lot more for than you would just putting as much as you can in a generic fund that follows the market. Vanguard and Schwab are both great about having ETFs that you can buy which just mirror an entire set of the market such as something like the S&P 500 ETF (VOO) or Total Stock Market ETF (VTI). Each of those has an expense ratio of 0.03%.

If your personal investment manager was buying and selling much reasonable chance he took a commission on each of those and himself made money, or that he gravitated to more "managed mutual funds" which means his company has a management fee typically between .25% and 1% of the investment (these managed mutual funds consistently under-perform unmanaged whole market ones).

Though, if you're wanting guaranteed expected growth, sorry. You need a long enough horizon for that, over any 15 year period you should expected smoother returns over the long term, but for a 1-2 year period there is a chance things go down from here no matter how good you are. If you truly need it in 1-2 years with guaranteed gains, some bonds with rates being higher may be a better bet.

 

[Tigger's ally]

Some short term CD rates are at 5% and above right now. With your youngest a senior, they might be a good short term solution to your needs. Make sure you know expiration dates and such so you can get to the money you need when you need it, but that short term growth may be the best you can get and is guaranteed.

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

I don't pretend to know much about stocks, but we have 2 roth IRA's which are wonderful. When we get ready to withdraw from them, there is no charge at all. We;ve been extremely happy with our Edward Jones rep (moderators, if telling the name of the firm is not allowed, please delete).

This just happens to be Edward Jones lol

 

[ambgoph]

Bogleheads.org

Someone on the Dis suggested this years ago and it was quite an eye opener on investing. Start by reading their Wiki, post your questions in their forum, there are a lot of very helpful people that will provide you with great advice.

The best thing you can do is educate yourself on investing. Thanks to Bogleheads, we dumped our financial advisor and are now DIY investors. When we need guidance, we pay a financial advisor hourly for her time.
Good luck!!

 

[afan]

This just happens to be Edward Jones lol

Honestly I would do 2 things then to make it easier. First contact corporate and complain to them. I think they need to know what their people are doing. Second, find another local office or two and call and chat with them about your needs. See if you can find someone that will work with you better.

They have offices all over the place, not all of their people are like that. Mine would never fire a client. It's easy to move your accounts to a different location I've done it before when I moved states. It'll be far easier and less potential tax hit for you to keep your money there and find a new office that's better.

 

[pens4821]

The problem I would see about taking the money out of the college fund and putting it in something secure would be the taxes. Even if it hasn’t gained much lately, I’m sure it has at some point. If it’s not that big of an account it shouldn’t impact you too much though. You could find a capital gains tax calculator and figure out (roughly) how much you’d have to pay in taxes on it.

 

[mom2febgirls]

Duplicate

 

[tvguy]

The problem I would see about taking the money out of the college fund and putting it in something secure would be the taxes. Even if it hasn’t gained much lately, I’m sure it has at some point. If it’s not that big of an account it shouldn’t impact you too much though. You could find a capital gains tax calculator and figure out (roughly) how much you’d have to pay in taxes on it.

Why would you owe taxes?
If it is in a 529, just roll it into another 529, no taxes due.
If it is in another investment, you already have paid the taxes.

 

[mom2febgirls]

Bogleheads.org

Someone on the Dis suggested this years ago and it was quite an eye opener on investing. Start by reading their Wiki, post your questions in their forum, there are a lot of very helpful people that will provide you with great advice.

The best thing you can do is educate yourself on investing. Thanks to Bogleheads, we dumped our financial advisor and are now DIY investors. When we need guidance, we pay a financial advisor hourly for her time.
Good luck!!

We used to use a financial advisor but found Bogleheads and then I realized I was paying a lot in Assest Under Management (AUM) fees for something I could do myself.

I called Vanguard and rolled all of my accounts over from a lot of little funds that our advisor had us in to a few low fee vanguard funds.

We have our kids college funds in our state's 529. We get a state tax deduction and it has performed well.

 

[pens4821]

Why would you owe taxes?
If it is in a 529, just roll it into another 529, no taxes due.
If it is in another investment, you already have paid the taxes.

From my understanding, you’d owe taxes on the capital gains for the non tax advantaged account (unless we are missing something about college fund in this instance). From the OP I don’t think it’s a 529 account. You pay taxes yearly on dividends, but not the profit of the share price between purchase and sale.

If you own 100 shares of stock you bought at $100, but sell it when they are worth $150, you’d owe taxes on the gains of $50/share you made. If that stock pays out dividends quarterly/yearly you do pay those taxes each year, but you still owe tax on the gain of the price per share you’ve made since you bought to when it sold.

 

[tvguy]

From my understanding, you’d owe taxes on the capital gains for the non tax advantaged account (unless we are missing something about college fund in this instance). From the OP I don’t think it’s a 529 account. You pay taxes yearly on dividends, but not the profit of the share price between purchase and sale.

If you own 100 shares of stock you bought at $100, but sell it when they are worth $150, you’d owe taxes on the gains of $50/share you made. If that stock pays out dividends quarterly/yearly you do pay those taxes each year, but you still owe tax on the gain of the price per share you’ve made since you bought to when it sold.

Yeah, taxes can be tricky. I looked at rolling my traditional IRA into a Roth and it made absolutely no sense because of the huge tax bite. Been retired two years now, drawing IRA money only, no Social Security yet, and won't ever have a pension. My retirement planning assumed that I would be in a lower tax bracket, and so far that has been true. In 2022 my tax bracket was the lowest it has been in 45 years.