Brokers Fight Rule to Favor Best Interests of Customers

If you think your broker or financial “advisor” has your best interests at heart, think again. “David O’Brien, a certified financial planner, has tried to repair the retirement portfolios of several victims over the years. There was the high school science teacher who didn’t realize she had been sold a variable annuity, where layers of incomprehensible fees devoured nearly 2.5 percent of her retirement savings each year. Then there was the woman fighting cancer, who was also sold a high-cost annuity, but whose underlying investments were tied up in a money-market type fund — one that cost 1.5 percent annually.”  “Brokers are not necessarily required to act in their customers’ best interest, even if they are advising on their retirement money. While that would seem to be a basic consumer protection, in Washington and on Wall Street it has proved to be wildly contentious.” Don’t deal with any financial professional who doesn’t have a fiduciary responsibility to put your interests first. Tara Siegel Bernard explains the details in the New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/your-money/rule-to-make-brokers-act-in-clients-interest-still-pending-after-4-years.html?ref=your-money