About five years ago, a friend’s company announced they would no longer be managing her retirement fund, handed her a check and informed her that because of federal regulations, she was barred from managing it herself (she works for a bank). She asked me to sit in on a meeting with a salesman with a well-respected management company. I walked out halfway through. Afterwards, she asked what I thought. “They are going to spend billions of dollars to get you a mediocre result and stick a third of it in a money-market account, reducing your gains even further, and then for the privilege charge you 2%. You’d be better off sticking it in an Exchange-traded Fund like those that model the Dividend Aristocrats, or even the S&P 500 for a couple of decades…. those charge less than a tenth of a percent a year. This ‘industry’ is a rigged game meant to make money for the industry, not you.”

“I know,” she said, “But I don’t have any choice in the matter.”

Bob