Do you understand your personal finances?

[Im_Your_ATM]

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I think if they put a random person in a target VGuard or Fido fund, it'd be better than what 90% of people could do on their own. Or a balanced fund. Something a broker could do with 10hrs of training, for example.

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Key words here are random and Vanguard. Folks who end up at Vanguard (randomly or not) are going to be fine.

Unfortunately, lots of people randomly end up somewhere else where some broker w/ approx 10hrs of training ends up steering them into "approved" loaded mutual funds w/ high expense ratios.

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I'm in the process of moving my funds (at least short term) to a couple of Vanguard index funds (thanks in part to finance forum) and I have a financial advisor. Wow do those guys love mutual funds and wow do they hate these Vanguard Index Funds. This is my nth meeting where they try to steer me towards a new fund but my next meeting I'm 90% sure I'll finally be moving my money into the index funds. It is so hard to convince these guys that index funds are a better option especially when they get paid a bonus for putting a client into a mutual fund A share which they didn't disclose to me initially.

I would love someone to reply as to why if a mutual fund seems to have all the right characteristics it is still preferable to go with a vanguard index fund.

Sidenote - The current one they're looking to put me in is the Riversource Strategic Allocation Fund. Anyone have an opinion on this one? sorry for hijack, got more to say but got to go.