Someone tell me the pros and cons of Edward Jones!?

Question

I have just started investing and was directed to my local edward jones office by a friend. now as I learn more, I find I know little about this company, how do I choose a place to invest?

Answer 1

Pro - Puts a human face to putting your money into a mutual fund with a high commission rate and high expense ratio. It's better than not investing, but do you really need to give up 5% of your investment upfront to have a guy tell you that you are "investing for the long-term" when the market is crashing?

Con - High commission rate. You can do better. Go direct to a company like Vanguard. They have no upfront commission and very low expense ratio (annual cost of operating the fund as a % of your assets).

Educate yourself. Subscribe to Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine and start reading. In the meantime, start plunking your money in the Vanguard 500 Index fund or the Vanguard Star fund. Those are great starter funds - and they'll probably do well for you over the long-term as well. As you learn more and build up your assets, you can do other things. But, you'll probably have a high % of your investable assets in one of these funds.

Given that the market has been climbing and is at an all-time high, it might be worth considering just investing half of your money into a stock mutual fund now and putting the other half into a money market account for the time being, just to protect yourself in case the market has any major corrections. If the market does go down, then what you have stashed in cash won't go down with it.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Edward Jones is one of the largest stock brokers in the US.

The main "pro" of Edward Jones is also the main "con";
A very conservative approach to investing.

For many people who are scared by the financial markets or have been ripped off in the past...... Edward Jones is an excellent choice. Their brokers must follow very intense "rules" all of which are designed to keep the customer happy (and safe).

For more aggressive & knowlegeable investors, Edward Jones may not appear to have all the "sexy" products some of the other major brokers do. ie., IPO's etc.

I don't use Jones (I'm a swing trader), but I've looked at their recommendations for some relatives & they're excellant.

Answer 3

I like Zeps answer but I will give my opinion anyway.
Jones is a full commission broker. That means they take 5% of everthing you invest. Five percent is a lot of money. Would you put money in a bank account where they took 5% off the top?
When you change investments they take another 5%.
I would advise you to go with a no load mutual fund company. The first link below has a page of links to no load familys.
I recomened doing some homework or if you don't want to do homework buy a life cycle fund such as one from vangaurd.

Answer 4

Edward Jones.com Logon

Answer 5

There's this stuff called research. This is a bunch of teenagers tryin' to get some cheats on their homework, not people to trust your investments with.

Answer 6

Most, not all, of these advisors, are very inexperienced. During my interview of the local EJ guy, I found out he was selling meat last year.