Fisher Investments - Risking Seniors' Money?

As you can see in my earlier blogs, you can tell that I was a Fisher Investments client. Then I fired them. Their poor performance was certainly a major contributing factor, but another major reason was the questionable ethic and integrity of this company. Let me explain.

When I attended one of their client seminar, I noticed most of their clients are in their 50's, 60's, and 70's. They also confirmed that most clients are benchmarked against the MSCI World Index, which is more aggressive then S&P 500. Furthermore, one big reason of Fisher's recent poor performance is because they went heavy on energy and were wrong. In another word, they were more aggressive than the MSCI World Index.

That begs me to ask myself this question. Is it ethical to take retirees' money to invest in a super aggressive portfolio. I understand the clients have agreed to this selection. It is Investment 101 that investors need to be more conservative and cash preservation as they approach retirement age. Unfortunately, it didn't appear to be that way from what I witnessed.

In light of the recently dramatic downturn in the equity markets, can you imagine seniors in their 60's and 70's watching his portfolios dropping in value each day. I do understand Fisher's argument that their clients agreed to the selected benchmark. But, if this is an ethical company, it wouldn't target seniors' money and risk their hard earned assets in these risky investments