[Stephanie]

I have been throwing all that I can into my accounts and I’m losing money all the time. My portfolio value is increasing at a snails pace compared to the money I have invested.

Still not sure if my financial advisor is doing me any favors… sorry if I am being ignorant! I work hard for my money and it makes me think I should just be paying off my house or something.

[Aaron]

I’m not sure what mean about your investment person “not doing you favors”.

That makes it sound like maybe your approach to investing is different from mine so I’m not sure if my outlook on this would be helpful. But I don’t feel the way you are feeling. I just put money away in the account into index funds and only check it minimally. I’m not looking for it to have x returns every month or something. We don’t even set goals like that.

Our goals with regard to stocks are all about amounts to contribute per year.

[Aletta]

How do you mean “losing money all the time? Is your account down overall this year? Or do you just mean a lot of days are negative?

The stock market goes down about 46% of days.

So, if the issue is you’re checking every day and don’t like seeing red, I’d suggest greatly reducing how often you look.

Once/quarter is more than enough. You could also post your portfolio holdings if you want sanity-checking.

Don’t miss: What is the best option for the 10k we want to invest for each of our children?

[Sara]

How much is your financial advisor’s fees? Have you read Simple Path to Wealth? What time frame are you talking about?

[Sarah]

No, I’m up 25% this year to date. I think you may need to read some books and change how you’re investing entirely.

[Michael]

Not sure anyone can really answer this in a meaningful way without some more details on your portfolio- What are you invested in and what sort of returns are you getting?

Stocks are up year to date. Bonds are still down given interest rate increases.

[Kim]

I fired my financial advisor 2 years ago and have been very happy I did so! Invested it all in vanguard on my own using advice from a simple path to wealth. Obviously all gains were down last year because of the market but overall I’m happy with the direction my investments are going.

My suggestion is to keep it simple, do it yourself, and stick to the plan. Don’t change things up or panic when the market is down.

If you have invested it in a deliberate way, it will all work out!

Don’t forget to take a look at: Where to invest though? I tried the stock market and lost money

[Lisa]

Investing is a long game. There are ups and downs along the way. But usually the ROI of investing is better than the interest rate of your mortgage, so better to invest for the long term, rather than pay the mortgage.

Also, read A Simple Path to Wealth

[Juliett]

You’re probably having growth. Your advisor is probably stealing your money in commissions.

[Brad]

Stop paying for an advisor. Low cost index funds can be done yourself easily. I’m up 8% this year using boring vanguard funds and if I include my contributions I’m up 10.5% YTD.

Would you also like to explore: Should I sell everything and reinvest in SP500?

[Colin]

Losing money all the time? The market is up like 16% this year.

If you’re just investing in index funds then you should be up plenty so far this year, and you also don’t need a financial advisor for that.

Also, the only way you actually lose money is if you sell when you’re down. That locks in your losses. If you just hold, you haven’t lost anything. You still own all the shares. As the stock market grows, your portfolio will continue to gain.

I would assess what you’re invested in and what your advisor is charging you. In general if you’re just investing in low-cost index funds through Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab or similar, no reason you shouldn’t be way up this year.

Suggested: Optum Financial makes you liquidate HSA investments to roll over to another financial institution?

[Amy]

Your advisor’s fees will reduce your return plus advisors often put you into expensive managed funds that underperform their benchmark, but otherwise it depends what you’re invested in.

What’s your asset allocation? What returns are you expecting?

The S&P is +15% YTD but if you’re X% in bonds you’re not going to see that return.

[Colette]

“Financial advisor”’sets off warning bells for me, guessing that’s where the money is going? Read the Simple Path to Wealth, invest in broad based low cost index funds, and it’ll be loads better

[Erin]

There are lots of comments about patience, and that’s true – the market is still working it’s way back to the top, but I would also suggest you read the fine print on fees from your financial advisor that you mentioned above.

Once upon a time I put 25k in a “managed money” account with USAA. Despite two years of annual statements that said I was making ~10%, my balance did not reflect that growth (after 2 years at that level of growth I should have had ~30k). Eventually I read the fine print and found that there was a per transaction fee that the money manager was getting off the top. The result was poor comparative growth to my other investments (such as index funds) and the fees were totally buried and hard to identify. Check your fees!

[Author]

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