PCCLOSEOUT

When I started as a stockbroker, the financial world was quite different from the way it is today, not even two decades later— and it’s still changing fast. You might think that this means it’s all the more important to have a financial adviser, or a certified financial planner like me, look after your money for you, but the opposite is true.
The changes in the financial world are actually making it much, much easier, and much, much safer, for individual investors to invest and look after their own money.
When I first started out at the city, money-market accounts were just beginning, mutual funds numbered in the low hundreds and hadn’t yet been embraced by a wide range of investors, much less changed the way millions of us now invest for our futures. Discounted ways to invest were just starting, which meant that the most common way into the stock market was through a company like mine.
With a full-service brokerage firm you’re paying full-service prices: you’re paying for their real estate, their overhead, their business lunches, their advertising, their commissions on all kinds of brokers. They are reputable, certainly,the language and workings of investment, you may even decide that the way you wish to be respectful to yourself and your money is to have an adviser at a full-service firm, fees notwithstanding.
As for the discount firms, they’re thriving. Why? Because smart consumers always flock to where they’ll get the best deals for their money. On their way, they stop to study what they’re buying and where they’re buying it.