As an SEC registered Investment Advisor, we are a fiduciary. As a firm with a CPA, CFA and CFP as partners, we have additional fiduciary obligations to put your interests above our own.
A fiduciary is a person or organization that acts on behalf of another person or persons, putting their clients’ interest ahead or their own.
It requires being bound, both legally and ethically, to act in the other’s best interest.
A Registered Investment Advisor is a fiduciary.
A securities broker, insurance broker, or registered representative of a broker or insurance company is not. Anyone selling variable annuities, index annuities or ‘wrap’ products in not.
No. “Financial advisor” is a loose term that has very little meaning. Brokers selling high commissioned products or insurance agents selling annuities can call themselves a financial advisor. If you want an advisor that is acting as a fiduciary 100% of the time, seek out a Registered Investment Advisor that has CFAs, CPAs and CFPs on staff.
Kind of. They are both qualified accounts in that they grow tax deferred. A 401k can be rolled into an IRA but not vice versa.
Wealth management is when a financial advisor looks at your entire financial picture. Some firms focus on financial planning. Some focus on investments. At EWA of CT, we offer investment management, financial planning and tax planning in one comprehensive fee. An accurate financial plans requires a knowledge of how you are invested and how much you are paying for those services. Further, proper investment recommendations involve an understanding of your goals and understanding of risk.
We hope that all of our clients will be happy and satisfied with our services. However, sometimes we are not a good fit and a client may wish to try another solution. In that case, there will be no additional backend charges to make this transition.
Skilled fiduciary financial advisors have been shown to add as much as 3% per year to clients returns. They would need to have a stable investment strategy, use lower cost investment vehicles, rebalance appropriately as well as several other strategies to achieve these results. These estimates are based on studies by Vanguard, Morningstar, Russell and Envestnet.
Yes. They can both be rolled over into an IRA account. Additionally, an account from a 457 plan, 401a or any other qualified account can be simplified into one IRA.
This depends on many factors including your tax bracket, taxable streams of income (social security, pensions, part time jobs) and whether you have taxable savings. All of this information can be loaded into a financial planning tool to see if this is the right strategy for you.
We incorporate Vanguard, as well as DFA, Schwab, iShares and other low cost providers. Additionally, we have access to institutional class shares that lower our costs for you even further.