Book Review: Who Can You Trust With Your Money?
Saturday, May 8th, 2010
The author of this book has been through the ringer. As one who advised people to be careful in their investing, she found that her husband had been stealing from his investment clients. Shades of Madoff and his sons.
She uses her ex-husband as an example of what to avoid in investment advisors, and adds in data from the Madoff scandal. She then moves on to be more generic in what investors have to look for in order to avoid being cheated.
The book moves on to explain financial planning, and understand:
- Certifications
- Compensation and Fee Structures
- Formal Communications
- All the parties that affect pooled investments
- How to choose an advisor
- Red flags
- How to employ an advisor
- How to maintain the relationship
- How to deal with minor and major failure in the advisor relationship.
She covers all of it. It is very basic, and not flashy. The juiciest part of the book is the troubles she had with her ex-husband. The rest is all business, which isn’t bad, but it could have benefited from counterexamples to explain why this is the right way to do things.
Quibbles
The book has an exciting start, and it is all business after that. That is not horrible, but could have been more done to motivate the important aspects of protecting investments through citing more case examples.
If you want to buy the book, you can buy it here: Who Can You Trust With Your Money?: Get the Help You Need Now and Avoid Dishonest Advisors
Who would benefit from this book
Most average investors could benefit from the book.
Full disclosure: This book arrived in my mailbox; to the best of my knowledge, I never requested a copy.
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