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02 25th, 2008| 
There is an old saying in the financial service industry that financial advisors and financial planners earn their money in down markets when their clients’ natural tendencies are to make emotional decisions that damage their financial futures. Your financial advisor should help you to make rational decisions and avoid emotional decisions that will reduce your future results. Is your advisor helping you to really create wealth?
Most consumers tend to have trouble with their financial advisors as they are not really advisors but paid commission agents who sell investment and insurance products. To help customers achieve their financial goals is not their priority. There is no law that can prevent the unethical practice of representatives and agents calling themselves planners or advisors. And it is impossible to regulate their verbal statements as they say can just about say anything until they get hold of your assets and can deny everything later. Hence do ask for documentation of all advisor information.
Make sure your advisor has a Registered Investment Advisors or Investment Advisor Representatives registration. This allows him to provide financial information for a fee. As an alternative you can ask if they have securities licenses that permit representatives to sell investment products for commissions. Make sure that you extract only quality advice from them and not hot sales pitches. Your advisor should be an acknowledged fiduciary and a professional willing to provide documentation for his competence, ethics, business practices, and services.
One of the biggest mistakes that investors make while selecting their advisors are placing too much emphasis on brand names, advisor personalities, and verbal statements. For example, advisors can lead you into believing that they can produce high returns for low risk.
The consequences of choosing unrated advisors who are selected based on their sales pitches are that they control all information that investors rely on to make their selection decisions. They do not reveal much information about themselves to their investors. You need to question your advisor in this regard and listen carefully to their answers. You must also be able to distinguish a good answer from a bad one. The non rated advisors will often try their best not to give any written commitments even for routine matters. Also know that you have the right to seek all the information you need do not get carried away by the advisors personality.
The Paladin Registry of Financial Professionals was established in 2003. We are an information services company; not a financial services company. Our ratings are given independently and objectively. We do not benefit financially from any of the decisions taken by the investors. None of the financial advisors or companies has an equity stake in the Registry. The Paladin registry is not licensed to sell any investment or insurance products, nor is any advisor employed by, licensed by, or affiliated with the Registry. We do not in any way benefit financially from your decisions. Our services are based on complete independence and objectivity. We offer all of our registry services free of cost to our investors.