Short-term advisor relationships do not tend to be very productive, and can sometimes be counter-productive, but advisors may still be useful for one-time consultations when an investor just wants an opinion on a specific issue.

A long-term relationship with one advisor is preferable to many short-term relationships. Meeting with a new advisor will usually be part of a transition period where an investor is looking to try something new. The advisor may start out with some preliminary planning but the investor may jump to the next advisor before the former advisor could really shape the plan he or she was seeking to build.

The investor may lose out on compounding effects or the benefits of long-term asset allocation strategies by making too many short-term changes. Of course, a permanent relationship with an advisor means that the client is paying fees to the advisor in some way, and most of the readers here at Tickeron are the type to ask if it’s worth it.

If your portfolio is large, complex, and hard for you to keep up with, you may benefit from paying someone to do that for you for the foreseeable future. An advisor in this situation is most likely to charge a fee as a percentage of assets under management (AUM), which is usually 1-2%.

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