How / What Do You Pay For Wealth And Portfolio Management?

To date, our reader survey has revealed some interesting data, but it is still open (if you wish to participate, click here to answer the 10 quick questions). We also must acknowledge that a good number of respondents are likely already High Rock private clients, so we are certainly happy to see that we are "preaching to the converted". 

From time to time, while following the news media and a number of other contributors/commentators from the world of personal financial matters on Twitter (you can follow me @JSTomenson, if you wish), I am baffled buy some of the things that I see and read. For example, last week I responded to a Globe and Mail financial columnist Rob Carrick question:

I responded with a reference to High Rock and got this response from another Carrick follower:

Why is that weird? We have a broad array of clients from a wide diversity of careers and professions all across Canada, some still working and saving, some now more or fully dependent on their savings for their lifestyle expenses.

Needless to say, the one common theme is that they are / were interested in saving and generally ensuring that they will have enough to live on for the rest of their lives and in many cases to leave something behind for loved ones or good causes.

Being aware of how and what you pay for this financial help (if you wish to have it) is extremely important.

I am thrilled to see that none of our readers pay via the Deferred Sales Charges (DSC) mutual fund avenue, where for many years advisors sold mutual funds with no upfront costs to the clients, while the advisors received a whopping 5% up-front commission plus a trailer fee from the mutual fund company. The clients were eventually dinged with hefty penalties when they sold those funds prior to a required 5-7 year holding period. Sometimes, advisors would churn these funds just to get another 5% commission, while the unsuspecting client paid the penalty for an early sale. Criminal. These types of funds were supposed to have been banned. Not yet.

However, I am not thrilled to see that 5 -15% of our readers are still unsure of how or what they pay. Friends, the costs of investing can set you back significantly over long periods of time. Please take the time to find out how and what you pay!

If you are not interested in going it alone (DIY), you should be able to get long-term planning, portfolio management, fiduciary duty and personal service (pretty big around tax time), including regular monitoring, at least semi-annual reviews for about 1%. Add custodial fees and ETF MER's and you get all in for about 1.25% (or thereabouts). At least you can at High Rock, despite some who may be more skeptical about what we can offer, likely because few out there can offer what we do. 

With our institutional division buying and selling in "wholesale" amounts, we can have our private clients "piggyback" off of those orders to get "wholesale" (vs. retail) prices and this helps us reduce our costs that we pass on to our clients. We also don't have big advertising overhead. If we can keep our costs down, everyone benefits.