where do you find people to invest for you?

Question

If i wanted a professional to manage some money in stocks or bonds etc - where do i find potential 'investors'? Does anyone know how they charge? Is it a comission base set up?

Answer 1

All the previous answers are good ideas to think about. Most investment "pros" are only salesmen. They may not have a degree in finance or even much experience. Be careful when choosing one. If you are dead set on using someone find a cfp. They are regulated by a board and are required to act as a fiduciary. Investing is something you can learn to do yourself. There are on line tutorials at yahoo finance and morning star.com. If you are interested in trading stocks try Scottrade.com. If in mutual funds, Vanguard, Fidelity, and T.Rowe Price all have a wide range of no load funds with no 12-b 1 fees and low expense ratios.

Answer 2

That's funny. Edward Jones is expensive. Commissions and fees can really ad up.
Professional managers is what sounds like what you are looking for. The two ways to hire a manager is to go into an actively managed mutual fund run by a good manager (ie Bill James, Richie Freeman, Saul Punnel (sp)). Or, if you have enough money to invest, go to a broker such as Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, UBS, Wachovia, or to hire your own manager directly to buy in a Separately Managed Account on your behalf (not local broker directed).
Mutual funds have commissions, A shares you pay upfront as high as 5.75%, B shares lock you in for 4+ years, and C shares, which are closer to a fee based account. Year to year cost on funds averages around 1.5-2.25% see www.personalfund.com (they guy investing with Edward Jones should also take a look at his funds expenses.
A Separately Managed Account should run any where from .75% - 3%, no commissions.

Answer 3

You can see what stocks the best investors are buying and selling at http://www.top10traders.com - this is a free site that lets you create a portfolio of stocks with $100,000 in "play" money. Each day the site ranks the best performing portfolios, so you can see how your picks perform compared to other investors. You can read posts on investing from the best traders, as well as share your own investing ideas. There is a charting feature, so you can see how your portfolio performs compared to the S&P 500. Also, you can create your own "group" so that you can see how you are doing compared to your friends.

Here are this month's best traders:

http://www.top10traders.com/Top10Standings.aspx

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

You need to search for a Money Manager. The fee depends on the size of you investment, how active your portfolio is, etc.

This might be a good place to start searching:
http://www.managerreview.com/

Answer 5

Good Question - it depends on exactly what you would want. In terms of risk profile, expected returns, investment term and in terms of unexpected withdrawal of funds. Matching small portfolios of stocks to the clients likely needs is quite tricky.

I would imagine a proportion of profit or a yearly fee of 5% is what they charge.

Answer 6

The term professional,( usually means-salesman. ) I am not a broker,but in my experience it has cost me 150.$-9.95 to trade a stock. I have seen high priced brokers,low priced brokers make good and bad calls on investments. vanguard ( never invested with them )is inexpensive.Do your home work, or do it your self! Of the ones I have experience with-Edward Jones is practical-expensive. No mater who you pick, KEEP IN MIND THEY ARE SALESMEN. For the long term I would go with Edward Jones. Welcome to investing!

Answer 7

Please clarify in "additional details"

Do you want to invest your money or to manage other people money?