I agree wholeheartedly with your comment. I made a stock purchase with EJ and it took about 24-48 hours to finalize. I have a little invested with EJ, a little invested with ML, with the bulk of my investments at UBS which are stock purchases. I am trying to decide who to handle my entire portfolio when I retire. I’d like a relatively stable stream of income from my investments that I can count on. I am uneasy moving my entire portfolio to EJ because I don’t understand the ROI. Dr. Thompson, your comment said it all!

Anne, I am curious in what you did.

Hello, I used to be an E.J. client. I think they did well for my parents. My problems came into play when I shifted from growth mode to income. This was about ten years ago. My advisor put me in oil and gas pipeline investments that melted down. They had high dividends, though. I had trouble with the statements. I wanted a breakdown of how much I withdrew, my market losses and gains, and my expenses. Back then, there was no transparency. My advisors kept telling me not to ask any questions. I finally found a lawyer who took about fifteen minutes to review the statements and give me the breakdown I had asked for years. After I received that information, I started to look at other brokerage firms to manage my money. I finally settled on Fidelity and went the self-directed route, which turned out to be quite lucrative: 10 percent returns versus three percent. Also, the statements are very transparent as are the interactive charts that show what your performance is, year to year and month to month.

However, and this is huge, however, I now wouldn’t recommend the self-directed route for accounts worth over one million. With a lot less money, I might put the money into a robo-advisor. But for more complicated investing, I would try to get a wealth manager who doesn’t charge commissions. I had thought that one million would see me through retirement. If you are looking to replace a six-figure salary, it might, but most investment bankers go with the four percent rule. With all of the medical expenses of retirement, I think you might need several million of dollars. People don’t realize that you can keep your body in great shape and still have health problems, which is why we all eventually grow old. It’s pretty sad. I managed not to dip into my principal for four years. Then the market crashed with all of the interest rate hikes, so this is why portfolios are down by 10 to 20 percent for the year.

The market has crashed, and, other than trying to time the market getting in and getting out, I don’t see that there is much that can be done. I have heard of firms that do bear market trading. But the S&P crashed big-time, taking a lot of retirement money with it. For wealth managers, it’s just another business cycle. For those of us forced into retirement, it’s a disaster.

I do think that, to do a good job of being a self-directed investor, you need to know a seasoned investment banker, which would be very hard even for us software engineers.

Don’t trust EJ!!! I worked for them and my dads estate was stolen via another FA cuz his didn’t care about anything but the commission! I’ve seen peoples personal financial and all basic information taken out of the office only to disappear but they say they shred everything! Crooked company for both investors and employees! I wouldn’t recommend even if I still worked there for anyone to associate with this company!!