Being in a position to soon rollover my 401K, the article and sound bite of Fiduciary Planners in place of Commission Based Broker is just what i needed to hear. This is a confusing time any trusted advise or recomendations is what I need and got from Clark...........Thanks Man!

While certainly not all commissioned brokers are dishonest, and all fee-based are likely not perfect, my uncle's retirement funds were depleted by a commissioned broker who took advantage of my uncle's naivity to make his own commissions. I tried to get my uncle to go to the SEC and claim Churning, but I didn't find out until some time later, and he didn't want to go back and do this. Thankfully, he's living with his son now, otherwise he would be in big trouble no thanks to that unscrupulous broker! I'm with Clark on this. Fee-based advisers at least aren't making commissions at every turn, so there's not as much benefit for them to pop someone into different investments that might not be good for the clients.

I could just as easily show you different examples of finacial advisers on a fee base only giving bad advice or a person leaving their funds in a past company and jlossing it all! Clark must really dislike commision sales people and seems to just lump them all together. You just like all attoreny's are bad. All radio talk show host are just hot air.....

I am a financial planner who is paid based on a percentage of assets under management. We also have the capability of placing clients in transaction based relationships, however, our firm prefers to engage in fee based relationships. I admit that part of the reason for this is that it is a more predictable stream of revenue, however, the more important reason is that it enhances the level of trust between advisor and client. If the firm and I are paid based on assets under management, then logic dictates that the only way for our compensation to increase is if the account value grows. Therefore, even if there is no formal fiduciary duty as Clark writes, we have every vested interest to make recommendations only in the interests of growing the value of our clients' accounts. I have been a loyal listener to Clark's show for many years, but I have to say that I deeply resent his insinuation that the only financial advisors working in the best interests of their clients are flat fee advisors. I can tell you that I sleep very well at night knowing that I take great care to ensure that my recomendations are sound and appropriate for my clients' risk tolerance, time horizon, and goals. That Business Week article irresponsibly focused only on the bad experiences of the clients of these rogue advisors in the Morgan Stanley Rochester office. It portrayed these experiences as the norm and conveniently ignored the millions of brokerage and financial advisory clients that have lengthy, productive, trusting, and satisfying relationships with their brokerages and financial advisors. Clark's rip-off alert does not provide any objective perspective and tries too hard to pad his image as the consumer champion. I am an assets under management fee based financial advisor. While I can sell annuities, I assure you that I only recommend them to individuals who can benefit from a guaranteed stream of income in the future through living benefits. Like a flat fee advisor, I generally don't receive any commission for steering clients to a certain product either.

Clark I retired 2 years ago and I have $88,000 in my 403b retirement plan, I have $80,000 in my checking and money market account. I am getting a 3to4% return on my 403b account which I have with Fidelity fixed account. I am not getting hardly anything on my other two accounts, can you suggest a good safe place to invest this money? I have two pensions and am living in my means right now but with everything increasing I need to make something off my money to help suppliment my income as needed.

I certainly agree that a fee-only financial planner is the way to go. I have been looking for one for several years, but in my area it appears that they all want to take a percent of your assets forever in order to be your advisor, and they aren't interested in you unless you have over a million $ to work with. I want an advisor who will charge me a flat fee to sit down and make recommendations which I will then implement. It's not easy to find one, at least in Fairfield County, CT.

I did this(what you were taling about above). Fidelity talked me into taking my 401k which is $44,000. I have seen it dropping, but I though it was the economy. Oh my, it is all I have. I am a nurse and plan on continuing to work as long as I can. What should I do? By the way you are great! Thanks, Roselyn

How does one determine a fee only financial planner? Is it as simple as calling all the names of planners in the phone book and asking the question?

I've been dealing with 401k rollovers for 16 years and the biggest problem is lack of diversification. Too often someone will have all their assets in their companies stock. The automakers employees are the worst at this.
Some annuities are good investments for a portion of assets--I'm not a fee based advisor and I know many fee based advisors and some are terrible at keeping up with clients accounts. Don't generalize one way or the other it's not good advice.