FYI: While we believe that markets are generally efficient, it would be shortsighted not to acknowledge the irrational behavior markets sometimes exhibit in the short term.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.etf.com/sections/etf-strategist-corner/3-questions-investors-worry-too-much-about?nopaging=1

While some have been selling their gold holdings old_skeet has been building a position in SGGDX while gold's price is back of $1250.00 an ounce; and, by my research this is below its all in cost to mine. Time will tell if building this position is prudent.

msf,
My EJ quote was not from you but Charles.
Most 1% advisers I know, from small ones in Wisconsin to big ones like Edelman, and maybe even Fido, do include (at least via initial questionnaire plus periodic review) planning for big purchases / expenditures / needs / child education / emergency savings yada.

Generally, believe that the days when financial advisers could get 1% for portfolio management of four or five mutual funds are rapidly fading.
c

Here, we're not only in complete agreement, but I may have been a step ahead (more critical) than you. I've told people for a long time that the typical one percent-ish fee strikes me as reasonable if it includes solid financial planning, considering all assets (not just AUM) and detailed needs (extended travel, major home repairs/renovation, college, BMW purchases, whatever).
1% for a few funds (or to put you in one of a half dozen "model portfolios")? Are you kidding?

revenue sharing taken from above; According to my 401-k it's returned to the investor to reduce fees. Also for those that itemize their taxes don't for get to add in adviser fees.
Have a good week, derf

What I wrote is pretty much a one-line summary of the CR study; I think that serves as substantiation.
Chuck acknowledges that the free advice you get is limited by asking: "Do you need more customized advice or additional help with your financial situation? A personalized investment plan that’s created and implemented for you by a team of professionals could be the answer. " Schwab Private Client service.
So there's more advice that you're not getting right now. But you do need to pay up for it. And give him $500K to invest. As you noted, Schwab offers a variety of these services (this one is a bit cheaper - 0.90% for equities, 0.70% for bonds).
The knock on Schwab's robo manager (Intelligent Portfolios) is that they're making their money off of the cash they allocate to your portfolio. Ted posted an article to that effect in this thread:
Schwab 'Robo-Adviser' Bets Big On Cash And 'Smart' Beta
Here's a column estimating Schwab's take (mostly from the cash allocation, but also from using their own investment products) at around 1% - about what you'd get charged for most of the services discussed in this thread.
https://www.hedgeable.com/blog/2015/02/schwab-intelligent-portfolios-review/
"Regrettably, this promising program has turned out to be a lot of smoke and mirrors."
You may be thinking that I'm leading up to saying that the "free" advice you're getting is neither free nor advice. I'm pretty close to that, but not quite there :-)
The name of the game with financial institutions is asset retention. If they can give you something of value (limited advice) at little cost to them, and get you to keep assets there, they win. The advice they're providing has value, apparently enough for your purposes. And they're not charging you, but writing it off as a cost of business (asset retention).
If it works for you, great. When you pay, at EJ or with Chuck, you should be expecting more. At least Chuck gives you a money back guarantee.

Good discussion everyone.
OK. I thought that front-loads were paid to financial planners, brokers, investment advisors as sales commissions.
So, in this case, I thought EJ would pocket the front load on the AF (or any other loaded) fund they sold to their clients.
If that is not the case, then I stand corrected and my fear in this case unrealized.
Generally, believe that the days when financial advisers could get 1% for portfolio management of four or five mutual funds are rapidly fading.
c

Got rid of a slug of GLD about 18 months ago that I inherited 30 months ago. Lost 20% in value in those intervening months, have made it up since then in various small cap stocks, but it wasn't easy. Recently also sold some gold coins; they kept going down in value. All the political instability which in previous periods kept the value up was not working this time around. Sometimes "this time is different" actually is true :)

Seems you can pay what you want to pay for advisers. From what I've heard, not substantiated, Edward Jones is one outfit that costs clients a lot more for their benefit, not yours.
My Schwab experience tells me CS has at least a half dozen different options for portfolio management. Most are around the 1% range. Some of what they offer is free such as the robo or the 'Perfect Portfolio' option at 0% advisory expenses. Yes, they put your money mostly into Schwab ETFs, but what do I care. I chose this option with part of my money plus a managed option in Windhaven with a .9% advisory charge. My local adviser has sat down with me 4 times since last August to advise and explain options, not sell. We have a local office here for Fidelity too, and I'm guessing they would not be much different then Schwab. But I'm happy with my CS decision.
msf said:

I'm not suggesting that the advice provided wasn't sound, just that free advice is generally limited in both scope and quality.

This comment is unsubstantiated and not my experience. My wife actually has here IRA with an independent adviser. She likes and trusts him so that part is great. But I can see he offers no more than my Charles Schwab adviser.

Right. VIG is fine. Just depends which vehicle one likes better.
As for the fee of .20% vs. .10%, from what I understand, the existence of "front running" by traders adds a hidden but very real cost to any index etf -- a cost of maybe .2% or more per annum. So truly, the old fashioned open end fund -- at .20% -- may be cheaper.
However, the actual results over the past 5 years show an annualized advantage to VIG of right around .1% exactly -- hmmmm.
another good alternative: SCHD.

No question that different people have different experiences. Glad yours has been good (even if you didn't follow all the advice.)
Consumer Reports did a study of brokerage advice. Here's their 2011 - 2014 Brokerage Service Buying Guide .
I might summarize it as: what you get for free is respectable, but hardly flawless. For example, they note that only Vanguard paid attention to the tax implications of portfolio changes. "They also found most of the documents [i.e. across all the brokerages] to be filled with boilerplate language and short on real, actionable advice."
CR states that only very rarely do these reps voluntarily disclose how they're compensated, or discuss fiduciary duty vs. suitability standard.
In your example, that may have been problematic. A CFP is held to a fiduciary standard, at least when doing financial planning. (I like the analogy in the linked article - it's like a doctor escaping his client-first duty by merely prescribing drugs but not not giving medical advice. Were you "prescribed" ETFs?)
If the CFP held himself out as a fiduciary, it seems he should have disclosed a conflict of interest - Fidelity's reps get three times the compensation for assets you invest in ETFs as assets you invest in cash (MMFs, CDs, etc.) If the CFP was not acting as a fiduciary but through silence let you think (because of his title) that he was acting in your best interests, that strikes me as more insidious.
I'm not suggesting that the advice provided wasn't sound, just that free advice is generally limited in both scope and quality.

How about VIG instead of VDAIX? .10% management fee and ETF convenience for the same portfolio.

"For starters the advisory fee at Fidelity is stated as "between 0.63% and 1.7%" according to the link msf provided."
Charles wrote: "So, they [EJ] charge you 1.5% each year to manage your life savings". I simply responded with the same phrasing, figuring we both knew what that meant. The article states that EJ "charges up to 1.5%", so apples to apples, EJ still looks cheaper than Fidelity.
" I don't think that either Charles or I (I'm sure about me) were suggesting that EJ or anyone else (e.g. Fidelity, Schwab etc) other than the issuing fund company were collecting the loads charged."
Charles continued: "Will sell you American's front-loaded funds, which takes 5.75% off the top (and Edward Jones pockets)." It sure sounded like Charles was suggesting that EJ collected the loads.
You may have meant something different, but your article quote was: "Jones last year earned $49.4 million in revenue sharing from sales". Those are loads (and/or trailing commissions, another form of loads, per SEC). That's $49.4 million of loads collected by EJ. (Well, technically collected by American funds and "shared" with EJ, hence revenue "sharing".) That's why I noted that this amount was in addition to the servicing fees received by EJ from the funds.
-----
@Maurice - what Fidelity suggests with Premium services is that you "Talk to your [Fidelity] financial consultant about a referral to an independent, registered investment advisor who can provide customized portfolio management, advice, and specialized products."
It seems Fidelity Premium Services does not provide advice - you need to go elsewhere and pay for it.
No pressure for high rev products at Fidelity? When I moved an annuity out of Fidelity, they called me at 6:30 in the morning local time, and spent a half hour trying to talk me into undoing that. They even got an annuity specialist on the line midway through the conversation.
The products for which reps get the highest compensation, i.e. trailing fees, are Portfolio Advisory Services (PAS) and annuities.
I figure that's why my rep kept reminding me for a few years that I could offload all my portfolio management work onto PAS. He gradually accepted my statement that I prefer to do this myself, and has since gently tossed a product idea or two my way from time to time. A much improved working relationship.

NOBL looks great. I like the fact that it is a compact portfolio, and I like the fact that it is equal-weighted. Also I can live with the .35% management fee.
In the same vein is the open end fund VDAIX, where the index requires only 10 years of consecutive dividend increases vs. 25 years for NOBL. Management fee is .20% and it holds a cap-weighted gaggle of 181 names.
I would not consider QVAL. I am unfamiliar with the quantitative screens it uses, although I have little doubt that they have all back-tested very well. To me, these somewhat esoteric screens add uncertainty and violate the KISS principle. Further, it is billed as an actively managed etf which not only gives humans a chance to mess it up, but which costs .79% annually. My guess is that over time it will lag the others mentioned here for that reason alone.
I feel that chances are all of these mentioned will do fine. The phrase "6 of one half-dozen of the other" comes to mind, but for a certain type of weirdo (present!) it is fun and interesting to split the hairs. Thanks for pointing out NOBL, scott.

For starters the advisory fee at Fidelity is stated as "between 0.63% and 1.7%" according to the link msf provided.
Those supposed front end fees - I don't think that either Charles or I (I'm sure about me) were suggesting that EJ or anyone else (e.g. Fidelity, Schwab etc) other than the issuing fund company were collecting the loads charged. It's just a simple fact that they exist for certain funds (or fund families) and it seems that the only way to get out of paying them is to invest tons of money which I don't think your average investor can, or invest through an advisor and pay those advisory fees. The work around is to find no load funds that perform as well w/o the addition of loads.
Those fees that Schwab and others charge for selling NTF funds is for the convenience of one-stop, supermarket access through the brokerage firm. An investor does not need to buy the fund there to have access. Ditto the TF funds. I believe that in some cases this fee may be incorporated into the ongoing expense ratio charged by the fund but what I don't know is if one would pay the presumably higher e.r if they transferred in a fund they already held.
The point of my initial response in this thread was that "good gravy that's a lot of fee income." I've no quarrels with an advisor being paid for advice. As a consultant in the building trades I get paid similarly. I just don't get to collect it forever. And as I previously stated, I'm in the wrong business.

"So they will charge you 1.5% each year ...." As opposed to someone like Fidelity, who will charge you, um, 1.7% for a Portfolio Advisory Service account (which just puts you into one of their model portfolios based on risk/objectives), or if you've got $200K, they'll come down and match Edward Jones' 1.5% for an SMA account.
With respect to that supposed front end fee - EJ receives the equivalent of 0.024%/year of AUM from American Funds (assuming no sales load). Converting that into a one time sales load (rather than ongoing trailing fee), EJ receives the equivalent of 0.247% in loads. With most fund families, EJ doesn't get sales load revenue at all (just trailing fees).
Now EJ does also receive recordkeeping fees for keeping track of individual investors' accounts and bundling into omnibus accounts. For that it receives up to 0.25% from the fund families. So the total payment/year received is about 0.274%.
Contrast that with the 0.40% or so that Chuck (Charles Schwab) receives for selling you NTF funds. Or even with what Chuck gets for selling you TF funds!
("Most [Transaction] Fee Funds pay Schwab a low annual asset-based fee, typically 0.10% annually of the average fund assets held at Schwab, although the fee can range up to 0.25% annually.")
The money's not in commissions, it's in AUM fees. For which the investor is receiving advice. Same as with Fidelity and other "discount" providers that charge comparable fees. Even Vanguard doesn't give that away for "free" (0.30%/year).
Here's EJ's rev share disclosure (where that $49.4M figure came from).

That's not accurate, Charles. I hold AF shares at EJ. There is no wrap fee. My sole fee is the ER which is second smallest in the mutual fund industry. EJ (including my advisor) is paid from the 12b1 (.25) which is included in the ER.
Also the load can be reduced or eliminated depending on the amount invested.
EJ is of course wanting more from customers like me, that is what is behind their Portfolio Solutions program and their new proprietary funds.

That's driving the costs of managing the actual money lower, though it's not clear the benefits are always being passed to investors.

I get irked each time I pass an Edward Jones store front. Each time I see an Edward Jones commercial on MLB TV.
So, they charge you 1.5% each year to manage your life savings. Will sell you American's front-loaded funds, which takes 5.75% off the top (and Edward Jones pockets)... and will put you in a new front-loaded funds each year for the rest of your natural life.
A fear I have ...

I think this might be the list Ted intended to link to:
http://dailyalts.com/list-of-new-liquid-alternative-funds-launched-in-2015/
If not I'm sure he will correct me.
FWIW, none of these funds appeal me in the least but I would love to collect all the fees they charge.

FYI: (Build It And They Will Come)
The following table provides a list of new liquid alternative mutual funds, ETFs, ETNs and closed-end funds that have been launched in 2015.
Regards,
Ted