Your investment advisor is a very important person. You rely on this person to help you navigate your lifelong financial journey, and hopefully guide you to a successful outcome. There are obvious characteristics we want in an advisor: integrity, honesty, diligence, etc., all good things. But there are other, almost equally important things most of take for granted in an advisor: What’s their investment strategy? What’s their view on the market? How do they expect to help you capture returns? These are questions we don’t tend to ask, after all, they’re the professionals, but the answers to these questions will have a profound impact on your future.

1. Do you think the market is efficient or not?

This is a simple question with massive implications. Basically, you’re asking whether or not your advisor thinks he/she can consistently get you better returns than the market by actively buying and selling stocks (stock picking), moving in and out of different market sectors (market timing), and using funds with the best recent return history (track-record investing). If the market is not efficient then these are valid exercises. An inefficient market means that stock prices could be underpriced or overpriced and assumes that smart advisors should be able to figure out which stocks are which and pick the ones that will outperform all of the others. Unfortunately, advisors don’t consistently beat the market, they can’t consistently pick the winners. The results of choosing stocks and timing the market have been overwhelmingly negative and research has resoundingly supported the assertion that the market is actually efficient (Efficient Market Hypothesis). An efficient market means a stock is never overpriced or underpriced, its current price is always the best indication of its current value. If the market is efficient, that means it’s impossible for anyone to consistently predict or beat it, in fact, attempts to do so are more like gambling than investing. Instead of trying to outperform the market, the goal should be to own the whole of it as efficiently as possible. This brings us to the next question.

2. What Asset Classes Do I Own?

In order to efficiently own the market, you need broad diversification. That means you want to own many companies, but more importantly, you want to own many companies in many different asset classes (large companies, small companies, value companies, international companies, etc.). When you ask, most advisors are going to tell you that the large majority of your money is in Large US Growth companies (S&P 500), which is unfortunate because the Large US Growth company asset class is one of the lowest returning asset classes in history. That’s not to say the asset class is a bad investment, it’s great for diversification, but it’s certainly not where you want most of your money. Small and Value asset classes return better over time, so you want to ensure you’re broadly and significantly invested in those asset classes.

3. How will you help me capture returns?

There are three important components to successfully capturing returns: 1) diversify, 2) rebalance, 3) remain disciplined. Diversification (1) means you’ll have ownership in companies of all different shapes and sizes all over the world. Good diversification does two things for an investor: it reduces risk/volatility and increases return. Since we don’t know which sectors or stocks will do best this year, we own all of them, and then we rebalance, which brings us to point 2. The goal in rebalancing (2) is to keep an ideal percentage of each of the different asset classes in your portfolio. Since stocks and asset classes don’t all move the same way every year when one asset class is up and another is down your portfolio percentages get out of whack. That’s where rebalancing comes in. In order to rebalance your portfolio, your advisor will sell some of the asset class that went up and buy some of the asset class that went down, bringing the percentages back into alignment. This must happen systematically, for example, it could be every quarter, in order for it to be effective. The end result is that you’re automatically selling high and buying low. There’s no gut instinct, no guessing, no market timing, it’s committed disciplined rebalancing, which brings us to point 3. Discipline (3) isn’t something that comes naturally to most of us, but it’s extremely important in capturing returns and planning for your future. There’s a behavior element that all of this hinges on, if an investor doesn’t have the discipline to ride out the ups and downs in the market they can’t be a successful investor. The average investor switches advisors and funds and strategies every 3.5 years, that’s a losing game. So how will your investor help you stay disciplined and on track to capture those returns and achieve your goals?

Since I’m writing this and I’m an advisor, you probably assume I’ve got answers to these questions, your assumption is correct. But this isn’t just a sales pitch, good answers to these questions are critical for successful investing, and far too many people simply have no idea what their advisor is doing for them, whether good or bad. So ask a few questions!