[Editor's Note: The following post of mine originally published at ACEPNow and gives five effective ways to increase your investment returns without ever the need to reach for a working crystal ball to reach investing goals.]
Q: I was looking over my statements recently, and I am pretty disappointed with the return I have been getting on my money. What can I do to increase my investment return?
A. Most physician investors need their portfolio to do at least some of the heavy lifting in creating the nest egg they will live off in retirement. Unrealistically high expectations for investment return often cause physicians to save inadequately, leading to a need to work longer than they wish or spend less in retirement than they had hoped. However, sometimes their expectations are fine; they simply made mistakes that lowered their investment return.
A general rule of thumb is that a physician needs to save about 20 percent of gross income each year for retirement, more if hoping for an early retirement or with a particularly late start. If you failed to do that, there are only three possible solutions: work longer, spend less in retirement, or earn more on your money. Often a combination of the three can do wonders in just a few years. Here, I’m going to discuss several ways to earn more on your investments.
5 Ways to Increase Your Investment Returns
#1 Decrease Fees
Perhaps the most significant drag on investment return is the impact of the financial services industry. It is not unusual for physicians to be paying 2 to 3 percent of their assets in advisory and management fees. Eliminating those fees can boost the investment return by 2 to 3 percent. If you have a $500,000 portfolio now and save $50,000 per year over the next decade, earning 8 percent instead of 5 percent on that portfolio results in a 25 percent larger nest egg.
How is it possible to cut fees that much? One of the largest fees is an advisor fee, such as the “industry standard” 1 percent of assets under management. Learning to be your own financial planner and investment manager saves that fee right off the top. That could be worth $10,000 a year on a $1 million portfolio. Many doctors are surprised to learn their financial advisor’s hourly rate is a multiple of their own.
In addition, many investors have mutual funds with expense ratios of 1 percent or more, 20 times what you could be paying with the least expensive index funds at Vanguard, Charles Schwab, iShares, or Fidelity, where the expense ratios are generally less than 0.10 percent. As you pay more attention to fees, you may also find others you can reduce or eliminate altogether.
#2 Use Retirement Accounts
If there is any drag on return larger than that of investment fees, it would be the effect of taxes. The best way to reduce the tax drag is to invest inside tax-protected retirement accounts such as a 401(k), a Roth IRA, a defined benefit/cash balance plan, and even a health savings account. In these accounts, your money is protected from taxation as it grows. This can result in an increase in return of at least 0.3 percent and perhaps as much as 4 percent per year. In a typical scenario, using a retirement account instead of investing outside of one over a 20-year period results in a nest egg that is at least 20 percent larger.
#3 Invest More Tax Efficiently
Even if you must invest outside of retirement accounts, there are methods to decrease tax drag. Broadly diversified index funds and municipal bond funds are very tax-efficient holdings. Some types of real estate investments can shelter income from taxes through depreciation or section 199A deductions. Avoiding turnover reduces capital gains taxes, especially short-term capital gains taxes. Qualified dividends are eligible for a lower tax rate as well. More advanced “tricks,” such as using appreciated shares for charitable donations and tax loss harvesting, can further reduce your tax bill.
The only return that counts is your after-fee, after-tax return. Reducing taxes and fees as much as possible could be the difference between having to ask your adult children to pay for your plane ticket to visit the grandkids and being able to spring for an all-expenses-paid cruise for the entire clan.
#4 Avoid Losing Strategies
Some investing strategies just don’t work well in the long run and should be avoided. A complete list of these is beyond the scope of this article, but there are a few common ones that are worthy of mention. Investing in whole life insurance is usually regretted by physician investors (75 percent of the time in the surveys I have conducted). The return is too low on a well-designed policy, and most are not well-designed. Speculating in precious metals, cryptocurrencies, and penny stocks are also unlikely to treat you well in the long run. Even investing in individual stocks of good companies introduces uncompensated risk to the portfolio. If a risk can be diversified away, don’t expect to be paid for it. Actively managed mutual funds also have a terrible track record when compared with index funds over the long run.
#5 Invest More Aggressively
Finally, one way to increase the return, at least the expected long-term return, of your portfolio is to take on more risk. That generally means placing less of the portfolio in safe but low-returning investments like cash, CDs, or bonds and more of the portfolio into riskier but higher-returning assets like stocks and real estate. Changing a portfolio from 50 percent stocks/50 percent bonds to 80 percent stocks/20 percent bonds has historically increased return by approximately 1.2 percent per year. Bear in mind that change also increases the frequency and magnitude of portfolio losses, so don’t take on more risk than you can practically and emotionally handle.
If your investment return is too low to reach your financial goals, consider these steps to increase your return. If you combine them with a higher savings rate, you may be surprised just how quickly you can build wealth.
How have you increased your investment return? Comment below!
I usually like some of the advice here but in this case, I think it is probably the most irresponsible and least thought-thru advice on the internet today.
Your advisor bashing doesn’t go without its own hypocrisy as you yourself have taken on the role of advisor and have spent countless hours studying these topics. I could just as easily commoditize the medical industry and doctors. So let’s get started and see a real-life example of someone that actually followed this advice and shall we? We will not only defend the fees but I will show you how you a real-life example of how you will lose MILLIONS by simply incorporating this advice- reducing fees, do it yourself, and adding risk.
1) I think it goes without saying, if you’re not happy with your advisor, perhaps you should be getting a new one. Trying to do it on your own would be similar to you trying to perform heart surgery on your own.
A real-life Example-
A Cardiologist came to the office and wanted to compare what we do vs what he had done. in May of 1999 he invested $600,000 in a Vanguard S&P 500 admiral fund. He wanted to confirm he made the right choice by going it alone.
I replied- “I will show you the comparison of a portfolio we manage through the same time period”. “Now, keep in mind I never charge anyone 2% but I want you to see but more importantly, understand the difference between a professionally managed portfolio vs DIY portfolio”
The results:
5/1999 thru 2009 the vanguard fund was Net negative -4.91% / $570,557 Our portfolio annualized @ 6.17% /$1,101,397 that’s over a 10% difference in annualized return and almost a 50% difference in cash on hand not to mention the significantly reduced volatility in 2008 Vanguard -36% vs our -23% and look at vanguard 3 years of negative returns from 2000-2002 with 22.53% in 2002 vs our with no negative returns until 2002 @ 5.35%. But hey, taking on more risk is what you need right? I’m not finished
From 5/1999 to today 9/2019 the vanguard ending value is annualized 6.01% at $1,972,815
Our portfolio has annualized at 10.58% with a value of $4,593,517
So tell me, Doctor, Was it the 4bps, the increased risk, or your lack of knowledge that contributed $2.6 million of lost returns?
How does that 2% fee bother you now?
I think I’ve proven my point here. You have great advice here but, to quote the great Game of thrones- you know nothing, John Snow.
If your stock picking works so well, why are you an advisor? Anyone who can do this consistently should be a billionaire and retired on a beach well before age 30. It would be foolish to share your secret sauce with other people for a paltry 1-2% fee.
David,
I will not editorialize your comment….I will only quote the highly educational movie Billy Madison.
“what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard (read). At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened (read) to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Get your facts right if you don’t want to look like an ignorant. S&P 500 returned 14.5,% from May 2009 to September 2019 with reinvested dividends. Good job on your 10.58% return during the same period of time, oh wait, i still have to deduct your 1% fee if not more which makes it less than 9.5% return.
Hospitalist- The vanguard fund is VFIAX it’s an admiral fund. The S&P 500 is the benchmark. From May of 1999 to Sept 30th,2019 The funds’ average annual return is 6.01% You can go to vanguard and look it up yourself.
You can compare the S&P using the ETF SPY- the average annual return is lower at 5.79% That would be because the SPY has higher fees and a slightly lower dividend( 13bps) to be reinvested.
You charge 2%? What a crook….
Nobody charges 2% . Typically charge would be from 50 – 62.5 bps. Now that could go up depending on other services but we didn’t get into that previously in the original post so we can keep that for another time.
Gosh David, your two fairly recent disclosures on FINRA’s BrokerCheck don’t look so great. If I’m reading things correctly, you just came off of a year and a half suspension earlier this week.
Asset under management fees starting at 1.5% and only dropping to 60 basis points for funds after the first $5M invested doesn’t sound so great either.
Or perhaps this is a different David Ingle at Synergystic. https://www.finra.org/sites/default/files/fda_documents/2016049110501%20David%20W%20Ingle%20CRD%206194469%20AWC%20sl%20%282019-1563378920569%29.pdf
Yep, it’s me. No denying that.Not sure what it has to do with the post here unless you felt its a credibility issue then by all means lets go over it.
Here’s a portion of a reply I gave to one of your other replies that is relevant to this reply.
You should research any advisor or company you would take advice from or consider working with.
3) I won’t get into the Finra report to deep here. Pointing out my record is fine. you are correct I just got off a suspension. It was lifted 3 days ago. I have ZERO shame about it and would never try to hide it either. It doesn’t mean you’re out of business either. RIA’s or fiduciaries don’t need a series 7 or FINRA to conduct business. Without getting to far into how dirty of a business the bank/wirehouses are, I did nothing wrong. In short, Merrill was after the assets and clients I brought in. But if you need further reading on one of the specifics there- then, by all means, have a look –
https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/breaking_ground/2015/09/the-wharf-is-now-fully-financed-heres-how-much.html
The only mistake I made was placing my trust in the company I worked for. If you’re really interested in hearing more I’m happy to explain it to you all you have to do is call.
4) The fees you see on the FINRA adv are general fees. most firms but not all will put their upper limit but they are not “price tags” if you will. Everyone is different speaking on this particular post with just one portfolio and no other services involved you would probably start out at between 50-62.5 bps. As the portfolio grows, the fees typically come down. When you amass enough wealth to become a qualified purchaser with $5mm in investments or more( you can look that up) you would then qualify for other investments at an institutional level that you would never have exposure to until that time. We can save that for another time
JZ- thank you for your comment. This is an actual portfolio of US stocks only. there is not EM, bonds, EAFE involved in this post.
I’m glad you are aware of backtesting errors. The portfolio I used for this particular client was established in 1994 by a Private Wealth team I was on at Merrill Lynch.
Well, I’m just coming back in to cell phone coverage after a wonderful weekend exploring slot canyons with the kids. We had a fantastic time, thanks for asking. Guess what my first text was? It was from one of my emergency physician partners who let me know that “David W. Ingle is running rampant in your comments.” I thought to myself, “Self, you don’t know a David W. Ingle, this might be interesting.”
So after unpacking my stuff and hanging it up to dry, I discovered that a post that I really didn’t expect very many comments at all already had 23 comments on it after just 2 days.
I then saw that your first comment EVER on my blog was this:
“I usually like some of the advice here but in this case, I think it is probably the most irresponsible and least thought-thru advice on the internet today.”
That’s quite a statement. It starts with a back-handed compliment, then proceeds straight into what basically amounts to “You’re a friggin’ idiot.”
Well, Mr. Ingle, if you don’t like my peaches, don’t shake my tree. If you don’t like my blog, or only “usually like some of it”, then I would recommend you go read some other blog. I would particularly recommend Michael Kitces’s Nerds Eye View.
Now, if you do like my blog and you do like hanging out here, I would suggest a more civil approach, or you will likely find your reception to be rather chilly and your time spent being allowed to leave comments here on what amounts to my living room (NOT a public space) to b quite limited.
But since you have left the FIRST comment on this post, I feel a bit obliged to leave at least a short reply addressing your concerns.
# 1 If you think this is “the most irresponsible and least thought-thru advice on the internet today” you really need to spend more time on the internet. You might start here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilePAxE8xzA
although to be fair, the video does say you shouldn’t do this at the beginning.
# 2 You suggest I am an “advisor basher.”
I absolutely, 100% disagree. I refer readers to advisors on a daily basis. I maintain a list of advisors who give good advice at a fair price. I teach the ~80% of doctors who want and need a good advisor how to recognize and pay a good one.
In this particular article, I am demonstrating some ways you can possibly increase your return. One of those ways, which seems quite obvious to everyone here but you, is to learn to do what your advisor previously did for you just as well as that advisor. If you can do so, then you save the advisory fee. If the fee is 1%, then you just boosted your return by 1%. This is mathematically so obvious I’m surprised it got you fired up to spend so much time here while I was off canyoneering.
# 3 You suggest I have taken on the role of an advisor.
That is absolutely, categorically untrue. As you will notice if you click on one of the disclaimers on every page of this site, you will see that it reads:
I am not a financial or investment advisor. I am not an accountant, an insurance agent, nor an attorney. I only have two licenses, one to drive and one to practice medicine, neither of which I do on this site. The information on this site is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, accounting, or legal advice. By using this site you agree to hold me harmless from any ramifications, financial or otherwise, that occur to you as a result of acting on information found on this site.
An advisor, by definition, gives personalized financial advice in exchange for a fee. I do neither the first, nor the second. If you wish to accuse me of hypocrisy, a much better claim would be that I function as a commissioned salesman (I sell books, conferences etc) while deriding those who do the same. That would at least be accurate.
At any rate, when FINRA/SEC start going after bloggers and podcasters, I’ll start worrying about that.
# 4 You say “I could just as easily commoditize the medical industry and doctors.”
I would suggest you do so. Maybe you could make a killing and do a ton of good at the same time. I think it would be particularly hard to do so I haven’t even tried. Medicine certainly has plenty of problems that should be exposed. You should start a blog all about it.
# 5 The whole first paragraph was ad hominem and probably deserves an ad hominem response. The easiest place to usually start with that is your ADV2 and your own website. However, my readers seem to have done such a thorough job of pointing out not only that you just came off a suspension literally days before posting a comment here, but that you were dumb enough to work for a company like Merrill Lynch, not just for a few weeks but for a few years. It took you YEARS to learn that the culture there was…..well…less than ideal AND post a comment on a blog like this using your real name. Want to have some fun? Google your own name now. See what pops up. Now do it again in a couple of weeks after Google has crawled this site a few more times .
David W Ingle Financial Advisor Synergistic Wealth Management
See where this post now ranks on that list? Seriously, not looking good for you. Now everyone who Googles your name and reads this post for the rest of eternity will know you have a black mark on your record that only a small percentage of financial professionals have to explain to potential clients.
# 6 Now let’s take your first argument:
“I think it goes without saying, if you’re not happy with your advisor, perhaps you should be getting a new one. Trying to do it on your own would be similar to you trying to perform heart surgery on your own.”
I disagree. In fact, I disagree so much and I hear it so often I wrote a post about it…8 years ago:
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/financial-advisors-arent-doctors/
I see managing your own portfolio as more akin to mowing your own lawn. It’s fine to pay someone else to do it, but you can learn pretty easily how to do it just as well as a professional and if you’re willing to put the time in you can save the costs. But I suppose if we wanted to compare the minimal educational requirements of a financial advisor to a cardiothoracic surgeon, we could do so. Let’s see:
Financial advisor: 1 week to pass required tests
CT Surgeon: 4 years college
4 years medical school
5 years general surgery residency
2-3 years CT surgery fellowship
Grand total: 15-16 years
Yea, that seems comparable. Give me a break. That’s a particularly dumb argument to make around here.
# 7 Your anecdote about the cardiologist reminds of the old saying that data is not the plural of anecdote. Your obviously cherry picked time period and poor choice of a benchmark were already debunked above by my readers and need not be addressed again. I thought it was particularly funny that you thought someone should use SPY instead of VFINX because it was somehow more accurate. The truth (for anyone who cares) is EITHER is fine. It was pretty funny to find out you were bragging about a portfolio you had nothing to do with as well, but that’s pretty typical for those working for that firm, so no surprise. I didn’t see anybody mention the issues with survivor bias that should be pointed out in relation to that argument either.
# 8 You say “nobody charges 2%.” I disagree. I’ve found LOTS of advisors who charge 2%. Even more would do so if they thought they could get away with it. I also disagree that a typical charge is 50-62.5% basis points. It is actually really hard to find an investment manager who will work for that little on a $1M portfolio.
# 9 You say: “they are not “price tags” if you will” in reference to published fees.
The way good advisors use their ADV2 is exactly that. It’s the bad ones (apparently like you) who try to obscure their fees and make clients come in to see them before they have any idea what they are going to pay and then (should they even ask) be told they’re getting a discount off the high published fees.
Thanks for providing a demonstration to my readers of exactly how most of the financial industry works.
Microphone drop!
“Dracareys”
Mr. Ingle, The way to change the results is to change the dates. You cherry picked dates from 5/99–>2009. Obviously your portfolio included EM, bonds, and EAFE. Cudos to a sound AA using diversity. Now do the same with dates 2009–>2019; different results. As physicians we are well aware of the errors of back-testing
JZ,
Thank you for your comment. There was NO cherry-picking or backtesting. This is an actual portfolio managed by a Private Wealth team I was on at Merrill Lynch The client invested on their own in 1999. I simply pointed out the net negative period from 2000 ( the tech wreck and 2008/09 financial crises) that some get hung up on and how stock selection is key for reducing the downside in volatile markets.
This is a 100% US portfolio with no exposure to EM, EAFA or bonds. At the time, the client had other assets but was only focused on this portfolio, low fees, and beating the S&P
Hi David,
I’m an advice-only advisor and don’t earn commissions and don’t manage assets. For my clients who are looking for ongoing investment management, I recommend unaffiliated investment advisors (but I never accept any referral fees or kickbacks for doing so — I just recommend who I think is a very good advisor). I think it’s amazing that your client was able to earn a net (after fees) annualized return of 10.58% over the 20 year period from 1999 to 2019. If you would be willing to provide me with audited returns proving this return, I would strongly consider recommending you as an investment advisor. Or, if you’d be willing to provide 20 years of account statements, I’d be willing to audit the returns myself. My email is [email protected]. Thank you.
David Ingle. You got exposed creep. By a bunch of doctors.
Thank you for your insightful comment Dr. Truth. Exposed would mean you found something someone was trying to hide. My FINRA report bears little relevance to this post. The bunch of doctors you seem to be referencing didn’t read the OP or comprehend what they read. Thank you again for your insightful input. Have a great day
I, for one, am grateful for the WCI “advisor!” They don’t even charge me a fee 🙂
You should be happy with the advice you get here. As I mentioned twice, it is good advice and if you don’t have an advisor and, if you like trying to do it yourself then you’re in the right spot. However, just because you are given a set of tools and the instruction manual doesn’t mean you are able to fix anything. Some of the comments posted here would prove my point
It didn’t sound like you think we should be happy with WCI. It sounded like you were just a financial advisor who got his feelings hurt. Your admiral fund “all eggs in one basket” with *literally no asset allocation change* over 10 years is utterly laughable if you ask me–diversification is elementary stuff! I’d much rather do it myself (or find an advisor with more competitive/fairer rates) than pay the extraordinary fees you seem to charge.
Well, which is it? You state this post (which by all accounts is incredibly reasonable and quite the “common sense” kind of insight) is the most “irresponsible and least thought-thru”, accuse Dr. Dahle of being a hypocrite, and then for some reason quote Game of Thrones (???). Now apparently I “should be happy with the advice [I] get” with WCI? It sounds like you’re doing damage control on a rather inflammatory first post.
I’m happy to clarify. Forgive me if I made it sound like I didn’t like the content on the site. Nothing could be further from the truth and apologize if I had led you to believe that. That was not my intention.
The post/article itself I felt was out of line but a lot of the advice I see here is very good for those who want to continue to DIY.
One of the things I obviously took issue with was #1 on the list. This was a direct attack on advisors and fees. I usually don’t mind this as I feel it is usually warranted especially when talking about retail FA’s from banks or wirehouses. But not all FA’s are equal and this was a typical wide cast net against paying for a service that may be adding tremendous value. the low fee conversation is masking the real problem, most DIYers are horrible are portfolio management and a host of other items that involve finance or planning. Looking to your advisor fees for more return in your portfolio would not be the right answer. Looking at WHY your advisor allocated your portfolio the way they did would be a better question to start with. For instance, if you had goals 1 to 3 years out you wouldn’t want to be in stocks because you can’t be sure the right amount of capital will be there when you need it. So you might have a good portion of your portfolio in cash or cash equivalents, bonds or similar securities with low volatility that might be weighing you down. But when you look at your statement and see a lousy return compared to the S&P or Dow that most people are busy comparing to, it’s our experience that clients usually don’t understand their returns will be muted from a raw index return due to the reasons their portfolio was created to begin with.
The other was advice I didn’t like too much was increasing your risk- you can be in a 100% stock portfolio and reduce the risk and volatility while increasing your returns. You just need to know which stocks to pick and that part really isn’t that difficult either.
“I will show you the comparison of a portfolio we manage through the same time period”. Meaningless.
“I will show you the comparison of THE AUDITED AND PUBLICLY REPORTED DOLLAR AND TIME WEIGHTED RETURN OF ALL THE portfolioS we managed through the same time period”. Meaningful.
Not sure anyone would recommend a 100% stock portfolio. But it would take a terrible manager who could not retrospectively construct what he claimed to be a portfolio he had created.
Another great article Jim. Thank you for accurately informing young physicians! 🙂
David, it doesn’t seem terribly relevant to point to a cherry-picked period from 1999 to 2009 when FINRA says you’ve only been under their jurisdiction since 2013.
Who is the cardiologist you were providing financial advice in 1999? Or even 2009?
Well, thank you so your comments Hank.
1) I NEVER said this was a client of mine in 1999 or in 2009. This client acted on their own and invested $600,000 into the vanguard fund on their own in May of 1999. They came to me in 2017 and has been a client ever since.
2) The portfolio I use is an actual portfolio we managed at one of the Private Wealth Teams I was on at Merrill Lynch that has been around since 1994. It is a US-only dividend growth portfolio. So there is no “cherry-picking” or “backtesting bias”. These were actual results.
3) I won’t get into the Finra report to deep here. Pointing out my record is fine. you are correct I just got off a suspension. It was lifted 3 days ago. I have ZERO shame about it and would never try to hide it either. It doesn’t mean you’re out of business either. RIA’s or fiduciaries don’t need a series 7 or FINRA to conduct business. Without getting to far into how dirty of a business the bank/wirehouses are, I did nothing wrong. In short, Merrill was after the assets and clients I brought in. But if you need further reading on one of the specifics there- then, by all means, have a look –
https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/breaking_ground/2015/09/the-wharf-is-now-fully-financed-heres-how-much.html
The only mistake I made was placing my trust in the company I worked for. If you’re really interested in hearing more I’m happy to explain it to you all you have to do is call.
4) The fees you see on the FINRA adv are general fees. most firms but not all will put their upper limit but they are not “price tags” if you will. Everyone is different speaking on this particular post with just one portfolio and no other services involved you would probably start out at between 50-62.5 bps. As the portfolio grows, the fees typically come down. When you amass enough wealth to become a qualified purchaser with $5mm in investments or more( you can look that up) you would then qualify for other investments at an institutional level that you would never have exposure to until that time. We can save that for another time
I think that covers everything you were concerned about or questioning.
The issue is not the cardiologist/physician or portfolio you selected, it just as well could have been any other professional who was undiversified but more importantly uneducated.
What if the cardiologist selected BRK.A he would have earned roughly a 10.06 annual return. Or if he decided to invest in apple instead well he would be worth 80 million today. But that wouldn’t have worked with your narrative.
But what you did indirectly point out is this site did not exist in 1999 and if it did maybe that cardiologist would have been in a better position today.
I put the time in and like a large % of regular readers we gained then knowledge to build a well diversified portfolio without the need to pay someone to do it for us and it was 100% free!
Good luck teaching yourself to do your own colonoscopy. But if you want to give it a shot I suspect some of the GI docs on this site would be willing to give you some free pointers.
This is great. Occasionally high fee advisors come on and argue that they are valuable. Rarely does someone which such a rich history get into the details.
So many questions.
Let’s start here.
According to the FINRA letter you “entered the securities industry in 2013.” According to the letter, you were at Merrill from 2013-2016, at which time you were fired. That being the case, how can you claim credit for any performance for a portfolio managed at Merrill from 1999 to 2009? Since you did not work there during any of this time you could not have been responsible for any of the performance.
Was your point simply that you were able to find one portfolio, somewhere, that did better than the S&P 500, even though you had nothing to do with it???
“There was NO cherry-picking or backtesting. This is an actual portfolio managed by a Private Wealth team I was on”
So you cherry picked ONE portfolio that was managed by a team that you were on (although how you were on a team when you did not work for Merrill remains puzzling).
No indication of the performance of any other portfolios. Or was this the only portfolio that was managed by the team? Seems like not much work to do for a team.
How many people were on that team? What was your responsibility? Since you did not work for Merrill, how could you have had any responsibility?
Were there portfolios managed by any other teams you were on? What were their results over the time? To what extent can the results of the portfolio be attributed to your contributions?
According to your website, you were at ML for 7 years. According to the FINRA letter, you were there for at most 3. How can you reconcile these figures?
How can the 10 year performance of a portfolio managed by a team on which you were a participant (for how long?) be reflective of your contributions?
On the return of the portfolio, how was it calculated? Were there any additions to or withdrawals from the portfolio during the time in question? If the client came to you in 2017, why pick a portfolio performance that ended in 2009? What happened thereafter? Can you show the performance of ALL the portfolios on which you had managerial authority over the time from 1999 to 2017 or 2019? 2017 would be far more meaningful than 2009 for someone coming to you in 2017.
As for the suspension, please explain how you reconcile your statement above that
“I did nothing wrong”
with
“without admitting or DENYING …” as nicely stated in the FINRA letter you signed.
The typical DIY investor would say that advisor fees are far too high for the services they provide. Maintaining a portfolio should cost about the difference between the underlying index funds and a Vanguard balanced or life strategy fund. Perhaps 10 basis points, although most of us would say this is a lot of money to pay for doing almost nothing.
I would suggest maintaining a portfolio would be better compensated with a flat fee, since the work does not increase as the account gets larger. An annual fee of $200-$1,000 would be reasonable.
David Ingle “received his Bachelors in Finance from Western Governors University”. It turns out Western Governors University is an online degree program (https://www.wgu.edu/). This is relevant because it shows a financial advisor doesn’t even need to physically attend anything (e.g., classes) in person. Rather, the 1 week to pass the exam seems about right. Comparing that to medical school and residency (or even normal college for that matter) is laughable.
To be fair, a Bachelor’s in Finance, even an online one, is far more than is required to be a financial advisor.