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If you have a lot of cash and want to invest for long-term growth and maximum gains, finding an investment service worth your time and money can be difficult.
Fisher Investments is a personalized investment firm that takes user preferences into account when investing their wealth in stocks, bonds, and more.
Want to know whether Fisher Investments is a good choice for your investment goals? Let’s break this firm down in detail.
What is Fisher Investments?
Fisher Investments is a registered investment advisor or RIA with a variety of locations around the world, including in the US.
With over 1000 investment advisors on its staff, Fisher Investments offers fee-only advice and investment management for high-net-worth individuals, institutions, and other large accounts.
In addition to its investment management services, Fisher Investments also provides some financial planning services.
Who uses it? Fisher Investments is primarily meant for people who need their wealth managed skillfully and who don’t want to trust their finances to robots or subpar firms.
The company has been in operation since 1979 and currently serves over 5000 clients.
>> More:Best Financial Advisors
What Services Does Fisher Investments Offer?
Fisher Investments offers various services for high-net-worth individuals or estates that need their money invested wisely to guarantee future prosperity.
Portfolio Management
One of the big things that separate Fisher Investments from other investment services is its active portfolio investment management.
When you sign up for a robo-advisor service, your investments will mostly be in index-based ETFs. The idea is to match the performance of your portfolio with that of the greater stock market.
In contrast, Fisher Investments actively manages your portfolio with a unique strategy developed specifically for your needs.
For instance, if stocks are generally going down, Fisher Investments will then reduce your stock positions and transfer that wealth to cash or bonds to maintain its overall value. The reverse will be true if stocks go up.
Granted, there’s no guarantee that Fisher Investments will outperform the general market. However, your long-term performance and gains may be greater by going with an active investor service like Fisher instead of relying on automated and algorithmic predictions.
>> More: Learn How to Start Investing
Financial Planning
Naturally, Fisher Investments offers in-depth financial planning services, especially for retirement planning. However, developing a more personalized and successful portfolio can help you reach your retirement goals.
For instance, all clients have access to a 15-minute retirement planner free of charge to help you determine how you can outlive your money and grow enough wealth for the next generation to benefit from.
>> More: What Is an Individual Retirement Account?
Annuity Assessment
Many wealthy individuals use annuities as big investment vehicles. However, annuities are very complex and usually include dozens of distinct provisions that are difficult to understand at best.
Fisher Investments offers its clients tons of information on annuities to help you determine if an annuity is right for your financial goals, as well as information to explain different types of annuities.
How Does Fisher Investments Work?
As a fee-only investment firm, Fisher Investments requires each client to pay a flat fee to manage their investments or portfolios.
Clients do not pay fees based on the individual trades or investments they wish to make.
As a result, clients never have to worry about Fisher Investments giving them subpar or fewer services regardless of their estates’ sizes.
Furthermore, Fisher Investments is human-run and guided; this is notable as the investment industry is increasingly reliant on robo-advisors and decisions made by automated algorithms.
Fisher Investments doesn’t take direct control over your finances or assets. Fisher instead sets up a new account in your name with a third-party custodian. Then Fisher Investments takes control over that account’s activity.
A client’s Fisher Investments account is made up of various assets, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, cash, and more.
The account will comprise your entire investment portfolio and be custom-tailored to your personal investment goals or profile.
Fisher Investments Features and Benefits
Fisher Investments offers a lot of neat features and benefits compared to other investment firms.
Tailored Investing Approach
As mentioned, Fisher Investments tailors its investing approach for your portfolio specifically to your needs, preferences, and financial goals.
As a result, your portfolio may perform significantly better when your assets are invested with Fisher Investments’ guiding hand as opposed to relying on a robo-advisor.
Client Education
Fisher Investments offers a lot of educational information for its clients; every move they make is understandable should you take advantage of these resources.
Every client gets access to comprehensive quarterly reports, daily online commentary regarding their portfolio or the state of the market, investing book access, periodic updates, and more.
Furthermore, Fisher Investments hosts regular client events in over 60 cities across the US. These are designed for their clients who want to know more about the decisions that senior officers within the company make and network with other clients of the firm.
Competitive Fees
Fisher Investments charges a flat rate for its services, but the prices are fairly competitive and straightforward.
Every client has to pay a fee of 1.5% on any portfolios up to $500,000 in net worth. If your portfolio is worth more than this, it could drop as low as 1.25%.
Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about any hidden fees or charges, such as commission fees.
Transparent & Honest with Clients
Perhaps most important of all, Fisher Investments is completely transparent and honest with its clients.
They provide a wealth of information whenever you request it and offer multiple opportunities each year to communicate with senior staff and ask why they make their investment decisions.
How Does Fisher Investments Determine Your Portfolio?
No two clients will be satisfied with the exact same portfolio, so Fisher Investments creates a unique portfolio for you when you sign up for their service.
To determine the ideal portfolio for your financial goals, they consider a variety of factors, including:
- Your risk tolerance level or how aggressive you want to be with your investments
- Your overall investment objectives (i.e., retirement, paying for college for a child, etc.)
- How long you want the portfolio to be invested
- The cash flow requirements, such as the income you require from your portfolio’s investments now or in the future
- Any other income sources you might be able to draw from
- Tax considerations so you are taxed as little as possible upon taking income from the account
- Any other personal preferences you might have
All the investment management is done by Fisher Investment’s IPC or Investment Policy Committee, which is overseen by five people, including Fisher Investments’ founder, Ken Fisher.
Fisher Investments also gathers a lot of information from its fully staffed research department, which helps to analyze macroeconomic trends and monitor individual stocks or ETFs to determine whether they would be good investments for specific clients.
Fisher Investment Fees Explained
Fisher Investments’s fees are fairly straightforward – you pay between a 1.5% and 1.25% fee for your entire portfolio, depending on its net worth.
You never have to worry about any commissions or other hidden charges, regardless of how many trades are associated with your account.
How Does Fisher Investments Compare?
Although Fisher Investments is an excellent investment service through and through, there are several alternatives you might consider.
#1. Facet Wealth vs. Fisher Investments
Facet Wealth offers financial planning services, though they are pricy at $1200 per year. This service provides both custom financial guidance and dedicated investment management, depending on your needs.
>> More:Facet Wealth Review
#2. Zoe Financial vs. Fisher Investments
Zoe Financial operates as a “middleman” and is used by thousands of American’s to find the best financial advisor. Simply answer a few questions, and Zoe Financial will show you a list of licensed, reputable financial advisors for you to review.
#2. Fisher Investments vs. Vanguard Personal Advisor Services
VanguardPersonal Advisor Services is also popular, though it relies more on robo-advisors than Fishers. As a result, its planning is not as custom-tailored as some other options.
#3. Charles Schwab Asset Management vs. Fisher Investments
Charles Schwab is another popular investment service with five-star ratings from a variety of other websites.
Note that you need at least $1000 to open a standard account here and $5000 if you want your account managed. Therefore, this may be a better choice if you have a smaller estate or portfolio.
#4. Motley Fool vs. Fisher Investments
Motley Foolis a “stock picker” service, so it’s meant more for individual investors who want to know which stocks to pick from the market. It’s not a service for managing your wealth.
Fisher Investments Review FAQs
Is Fisher Investments Worth It?
Ultimately, Fisher Investments is most worth it for high-net-worth individuals or states that want a personalized touch for their investing.
It may also be a good choice for day traders who have a lot of money to move around since Fisher Investments doesn’t charge any commissions or other fees.
Does Fisher Investments Beat the Market?
Sometimes – actually, most of the time! Fisher Investments is largely successful in part because of the financial expertise of those who make up its IPC, who, in turn, manage most of the decisions for the portfolios of clients.
What Fees do Fisher Investments Charge?
Fisher Investments only charges a flat fee between 1.25% and 1.5% based on the size of your portfolio.
Is Fisher Investments Better than Edward Jones?
Edward Jones is another old company in the financial investment industry (having been formed in 1922).
However, it’s important to note that it charges slightly higher fees than Fisher Investments, ranging from 1.25% to 2% to account for mutual fund fees.
Still, it has more offices than almost any other brokerage firm: 13,000 spread throughout the world.
Who Is Ken Fisher?
Ken Fisher is the founder and CEO of Fisher Investments. He has extensive financial investment experience, having authored 11 books in the industry and a long-running column with Forbes. He currently owns over 75% of Fisher Investments’ shares.
Bottom Line: Fisher Investments Review
Overall, Fisher Investments is an excellent investment service for those who want a personalized investment strategy to pursue long-term wealth growth.
Its low rates and excellent educational materials make Fisher Investments a perfect investment firm for high net-worth individuals who want to take a more hands-on, customized approach to their investments or who don’t trust robo-advisors to do as good a job as possible.
