My only intent for starting this thread was to say be aware of what you are paying for advise/service and if the fees you are paying are negotiable.

Investment is personal some will prefer their investment be actively managed, managed by themselves while others prefer Index funds.

Greed despite Hollywood depiction is not good for this industry. Many of investment adviser broker, etc has been sent to jail and it seems now-a-days that is becoming more common

Asset allocation, diversification , holding, fees and rebalancing are main stays here as are computer models for predictions.

You can bet that investment professionals are going to be the biggest winners, and the big boys at the top are getting the pick of the litter, something most of us will never realize. In Las Vegas the house always wins and I suspect the same principle applies in the investment business

This is an interesting article on the topic Financial Advisery services and a new/growing form of how to deliver the services.

I have been seeing more and more articles about Financial Advisery services over the internet.

Do you think some, or perhaps a lot, of the local "Face to Face" Financial Advisery services will end up being displaced by the eFinancial Advisery Services over the internet?

How Much Should You Pay a Financial Advisor?

There are more and more articles proposing exactly what the aforementioned article suggests as I explained in a previous post.

I spent my entire working life reminding myself that bankers are rich because they rent your money for one amount and earn substantially more then the interest they pay you. so I avoided borrowing except for my homes and paid them off quickly and just enough to utilize the mortgage deduction option.

What advisor? I've never had one and I have never been in a mutual fund of any kind. I only bought some treasury bonds once, many years ago, and I have never bought any foreign stocks. I've never been widely diversified as mutual funds are. So, I should be a big loser, right? Wrong!

When I got serious about investing, about 30 years ago, I picked individual stocks, mostly big cap stocks of well established companies. These were companies with a good track record. Did I make mistakes along the way? Sure, I made plenty but I learned from them. And now I couldn't be happier with the results.

I'm not saying it's for everyone but it can be done if you have the time, knowledge, interest, fortitude, patients etc..