It’s a New Year and many of us are looking to start the New Year out on the right foot financially.  Couple this with the upcoming tax season and this is prime time for the financial product sales types.   Before buying ANY financial product make sure that this product is right for you in terms of your overall financial situation.  Financial products are tools and just like your projects around the house you should use the right tool for the job and not the tool that the financial rep wants to sell to you.

Here are three products that you should consider avoiding:

Equity-Indexed Annuities 

Equity-Indexed Annuities are an insurance-based product where the returns are tied to some portion of the performance of an underlying market index such as the S&P 500.  Your gains are limited to a portion of what the index gains and there is generally some sort of minimum return to limit (or eliminate) your risk of loss.  As you can imagine these were pitched heavily to Baby Boomers and retirees after the last market downturn and are still being sold based upon fear today.  Two problems here are generally high expenses and surrender charges that keep you locked in the product for years.  The reality based upon my experience is that while most investors suffered major losses during 2008-09, my clients (and the clients of other financial advisors with whom I network) had generally made up those losses in a relatively short period of time and now find themselves decently ahead of where they were.  I’m not sure that an expense laden Equity-Index Annuity would have made them any better off.  If you decide to go ahead with the purchase of an Equity-Indexed Annuity be sure that you understand all of the details including index participation, expenses, surrender charges, and the health of the underlying insurance company.

Proprietary Mutual Funds

 It is not uncommon for registered reps and brokers, who are compensated all or in part by commissions or trailing fees from the mutual funds they sell, to suggest mutual funds from the family run by their employer.  While some of these funds are perfectly fine, all too often in my experience they are not.  Whether from high fees and/or low performance these are often investments to be avoided.  A lawsuit against Ameriprise Financial brought by a group of participants in the company’s retirement plan alleges the company breached its Fiduciary duty by offering a number of the firm’s own funds in the plan and these funds then paid fees back to Ameriprise and some of its subsidiaries.  JP Morgan settled a suit by some retail investors over the bank steering clients into their more expensive proprietary funds over those of other families.

While this is most common in the world of fee-based and commissioned reps, if you are working with the advisory units of a fund company such as Fidelity or Vanguard you should also question recommendations that are exclusively or mainly into their own proprietary funds.  Though I like and use funds from both families you should still question these types of recommendations.  Moreover anyone who pushes you to invest mainly with mutual funds offered by their employer should be questioned vigorously.

Load Mutual Funds

It is important that you understand the ABCs of mutual fund share classes.  In the commissioned/fee-based world reps often sell mutual funds that offer compensation to them and to their broker-dealers.  A shares charge an up-front commission plus a trailing fee (often a 12b-1) of somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.25% or more.  B shares charge no up-front commissions, but carry an additional back-end load as part of the ongoing expense ratio.  This can amount to an addition 0.75% or more added to the fund’s annual expenses.  In addition these shares also contain a surrender charge that typically starts at 5% if your sell the fund before the end of the surrender period.  B shares have been largely phased out by many of the major fund providers.  C shares typically have a permanent 1% level load added to the fund’s expense ratio and carry a one year surrender period.

Look I certainly don’t provide financial advice for free and wouldn’t expect any other professional to do so either.  Unless the person to whom you are paying these pricey loads is providing extraordinary advice, this is a very expensive way to go.  My very biased opinion is that you should look for a fee-only advisor who isn’t compensated based upon the products they sell to you.  Rather fee-only advisors generally act as fiduciaries and are paid for their professional advice and expertise without the conflicts of interest inherent in selling financial products.

The above comments are general and reflect my opinions.  However no financial product is right or wrong in every case.  Before making any financial or investment decision it is best to review your specific situation.  Consult your financial advisor if you work with one.

Please feel free to contact me with questions about any financial products you may be considering or to address your investment and financial planning advice needs. 

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