Natalie is nice, but her true motive is to take as much money from her clients as possible. I know…read morea thing or two about investing. I manage my own money, have read about a dozen or so books on investing, read the Economist, and have followed markets for awhile now. At Edward Jones they put you in funds that earn the most fees for themselves. They completely disregard what's actually best for the customer.
Their fee structure may have changed, and it is rather opaque. (They don't want to tell how much they charged because if their clients understood how bad of a deal they were getting, they wouldn't put their money with them.) But I digress, when my mom had her money with them several years ago, they charged:
$100 to execute a trade
2% of any profit made
They charged my grandma $78 a month
The funds had front load fees of up to 5%, meaning if you invested $1,000 in them, they automatically took $50, oh yeah and the $100 to execute the trade. My grandma had a dozen or so funds like this in her portfolio.
The funds have around a 2% expense ratio, meaning they take 2% of the total money held in the funds each year, regardless of performance. And by the way, 80-90% of funds don't beat the market. If you don't believe me, Google 'Warren Buffett low cost index funds'. In my mom's portfolio and my own, I buy Vanguard funds, which have a .07% expense ratio. That means Edward Jones charges 28 times more than the average fund Edward Jones advises.
My grandma had no idea the amount Edward Jones was swindling from her until I pointed this out. Over the course of four years, my mom now has about $50,000 more than what she would have had if she left her money with Edward Jones. She didn't have Natalie. Her advisor was even worse.
When I went in to her office with my Grandma about a year ago, I asked her about basic books every money manager should be familiar with. I could tell she didn't know what I was talking about. I would recommend reading about passive investing and managing your money on your own. Seriously, if you read one or two books on investing, you'll have more knowledge than she does. For most people in the middle class, financial advisors are out of date and becoming obsolete. Open a TD or Charles Schwab account and buy low cost index funds. It's pretty simple.
Here are some articles to get you started:
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2016/06/11/index-we-trust
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/why-warren-buffett-says-index-funds-are-the-best-investment.html
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/01/26/no-one-did-more-for-the-small-investor-than-jack-bogle
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2016/06/09/slow-motion-revolution
Also, I would recommend reading The Intelligent Investor and A Random Walk Down Wall Street.
I'm not getting paid for this, but TD gave my grandma $250 to switch over to them and gave me $140 worth of free trades for referring her; so, I'm a little biased towards them. They only charge $7 per trade and have fantastic customer service. They try and push their funds too, but the fees are nowhere near as high as Edward Jones's fees are. Plus, you have more autonomy to choose your own funds.
When Natalie found out I was moving my grandma's money to TD Ameritrade, she called my grandma and tried to convince her several times to keep it with them. She also implied the fund I told her to invest in was doing poorly because I was incompetent. Let me explain.
About a year ago, my grandma had bonds mature and had money available to invest in another fund. She's 73 years old and had roughly 80% of her funds in equities, which is incredibly high for someone her age. (Also, Natalie didn't know what I meant by equities.) I pushed to invest in a bond fund; but she revoked, and I didn't want to make a scene because my grandma doesn't like confrontation. She initially wanted to put her money in one of the high fee mutual funds, but we finally settled on a low-cost vanguard equity index fund. Right now bonds are doing well because of monetary easing around the world and fears of a recession. Had she done what I asked and invested in the bond fund I wanted, VTABX, it would have gained 8%. On the phone call, she had the audacity to tell her the equity index fund that I chose was down, as if it was my fault. Even though my grandma would have lost more money had Natalie put her in the fund that made the most money for herself. Natalie completely lacks integrity.
If you don't believe me that these people are horrible, here's a link to 145 people complaining about them.
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/edward-jones.html
These people prey upon the peoples' lack of financial literacy (even though they just have the semblance of knowledge) and tell them they're getting a good deal. Natalie is nice, but it's just a facade. She and all the other people at Edward Jones just want your money. If you think you are having success with these people, you lack financial literacy.
