Over the last 5 decades years we have been brainwashed into holding professional people in high regard, a job in banking is respected and working as an Financial Investment Adviser meant you understood how to invest money on behalf of your customers. However over the last two years we have seen this stripped away to reveal the truth, they are only human and humans have weaknesses, plenty of them!

Bankers once well-known and appreciated for being conservative with other people's money are no longer risk averse. They nearly lost it all. Cash in the bank was supposed to be a safe place, yet it had been completely risked. Scouring the globe for ever- increasing profits they took undue risks with our money and never told us, in fact actively disguised it. Now they are too conservative, being too scared to lend money to the very businesses that keep our whole economy running. All this whilst having their profits bolstered by an extremely low cost of money (Fed Funds Rate, Bank of England base rate). They are getting the money at practically no cost while lending it out at still pre-crisis rates. You try getting a loan under 4 of his original investment has vanished. He could not get out of the contracts and now he needs to hope the markets recover to pre-crisis levels before he even see the amount he invested. This could be 5 to 10 years if he is lucky. In the meantime he is drawing down this reduced amount just to cover his living expenses, this money he will never get back.

The point here is simple. Financial advisers in general are in sales, experts in selling you funds, pensions and insurance they are not experts at understanding what way the market is heading and if those funds will make you any money at all. However they are also experts in taking a fixed percentage cut of your money every year whether you make a profit or not. So to them the main focus is on how much money they can manage so they see a percentage of that portfolio come into their business as revenue.

Take back control.

Now is the time to take back control. You need to understand. You need to make the decisions. Wouldn't you like to know how to evaluate whether the ETF or Mutual Fund your adviser is recommending has any change of making money in the near to medium future.

Who can you ultimately trust with your finances. You and only you.

So take an opportunity to really learn how the stock market moves (fundamentals & business cycles), why it moves (the business climate), and study technical analysis so you can understand when it moves.