[codingdave]

The cocktail napkin stories are one-off anecdotes that all law school students go through in their first semester to learn about what actually makes a contract. They are great example to show how a formal document with signatures is not the critical piece of a contract. They do not mean that you should never scrawl notes on a napkin because napkins have some special legal power. And any quote that implies such should be taken with a fairly large grain of salt.

Also, wealth managers don't simply try to beat the market over a short term. They try to help you diversify so that in the case of a market change or complete meltdown, you don't lose everything. You pay that percentage not to maximize every penny, but to make a reasonable return while minimizing your losses in odd scenarios, so that you can live on the returns while never even touching the principal assets. Again, anyone who boils it down to "just invest in index funds" is missing the big picture. (And that includes bad financial planners. If they give simple advice, call someone else.)

[ams6110]

Agree. And some people will just sleep better knowing a professional is helping with their investments, and that's worth something.

One hint is to talk to a couple of local estate planning attorneys and see who they recommend for financial planning/wealth management. They will have seen who does a good job and who doesn't. It probably isn't the guy working at the local Charles Schwab or Edward Jones office in a strip mall.