You may have heard about President Obama’s recent push to make sure ALL advisors involved with retirement planning act in their clients’ best interests. For those of us here at TRPG, that’s a no-brainer—we’ve operated under that assumption since day one. In fact, you might be surprised to learn that a lot of advisors DO NOT act in their clients’ best interests. This situation hurts literally millions of middle-class Americans.
President Obama spoke recently about the need for advisors to serve as a fiduciary—someone who genuinely looks out for the best interests of someone else. It means no side deals or “hidden” payments for the advisor. We at TRPG have been fiduciaries for 11 years—since day one. As your advisor, we believe it is critical to act in your best interest. We work hard for you because we want to see you succeed in your retirement, and because it’s the right thing to do. We don’t accept side deals or back-door payments. It would be good for every investor if the industry caught up.
Investors often believe their advisor is an impartial expert. Unfortunately, some advisors are only looking out for themselves—many receive back-door payments and hidden fees for steering people into investments that have high fees. These high fees eat up the investments’ growth and leave the investor with low returns, essentially helping to finance the advisor and not the Clients’ retirement dreams.
The Department of Labor estimates these higher costs eat up, on average, 1% per year of investor returns, which adds up to as much as $17 billion each year. This means less money for you at retirement. This enormous amount of revenue explains why some in the industry are fighting so hard against this proposal.
You’ve probably heard us mention the extremely low fees in your portfolio. Maybe you are tired of hearing about it. However, we emphasize this point because it helps YOU be more successful at investing. We take great pride in the low costs of our portfolios because we know how expensive costs can be elsewhere.
The bottom line?
The devil is in the details, but we think Obama’s proposal of eliminating hidden fees is right on track.
As always feel free to contact us with questions. You can click the picture of your advisor below to e-mail them directly.