More evidence that financial advisers may not benefit clients

As recently reported in The Wall Street Journal,by Daisy Maxey on July 24, research in Europe found that:
"Investors trading stocks with assistance of financial advisers are more diversified and overcome some common pitfalls, a new working paper from European researchers found.
But they are worse off overall than investors who trade independently, because their stock purchases underperform, the study says.
The findings suggest advisers “do not help investors make superior stock purchases,” wrote the researchers, who examined client transactions at a large, unidentified Swiss bank.
There was “consistent evidence” that stock trades made by investors in conjunction with an adviser underperformed benchmarks as well as trades investors made independently, the researchers say.
Moreover, the underperformance was “particularly severe if the client-advisor contact was initiated by the adviser, suggesting that advisers actively approach clients with rather poor trading ideas,” the paper says.