Thoughts on financial advisors stock picking?

They don’t want the clients to see how easy/effective it is to just invest in VOO, VTI, and QQQ and not have to pay them a fee to do so.

How does he earn his fees. Does he receive a commission per transaction? A percentage of assets under management?

I'd assume if it's a percentage of assets under management, then he has strong feelings about these stocks (or your parents and him picked them), and he's using this as a method of "controlling the risk". Then again, if this were the case, he'd probably just use new investments to "fix the imbalance".

If it's a commission, then he's most likely using the line about "controlling the risk/beat the market" to beef up his sales. Because he could just use new investments to balance the portfolio

If you want something done right, do it yourself….

The robo advisor at Schwab I use is averaging 20% returns since 2023 when I started using it. I don't trust people, so it works out.

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advisors indexing

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Oxymoron

Index (you do not need advisor for this)!

Do not underestimate value of time (n)
Do not overestimate ‘beating mkt’ (k)

(1+k)^n

Leverage time and go enjoy your life.

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They don’t want the clients to see how easy/effective it is to just invest in VOO, VTI, and QQQ and not have to pay them a fee to do so.

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I agree. But haven’t those just mirrored the S&P 500 over the past 2 years?

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lying

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Or committing fraud. Sometimes both.

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straight malpractice given the research that indices produce better returns (relative to risk).

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Fake news until you show the returns. If it's working you can't just blanket say this. If it's not, so be it.

I didn't even ask for a track record. I can look at a portfolio and know it is trash, and no amount of BS marketing materials will change that. There is no justification you can make for handpicking a couple of large cap stocks (unless you have material information which gives you an edge, which I highly doubt from a local Louisiana firm)

I recently met with a financial planner and they use a strategy of keeping enough funds in bonds and such to cover a set number of years of distributions for living expenses and the remaining funds spread evenly in 30 individual stocks. The stocks are large secure company funds that have a historical record of consistent dividends. For example, the two oil companies in the portfolio are XOM and CVX. The other 28 are the ones everyone recognizes that pay dividends. Dividends are used and shares redistributed to keep the percentages the same and to replenish the bond account. When I retire, I will keep my 401K in all my index funds but am leaning towards letting this group invest my retirement lump sum. They are a no commission firm and their income comes from the annual percentage fee. The other attractive thing about them is they are tax experts.