Should I have my money managed professionally?

1. Asset allocation ETF from BMO, Vanguard or iShares. These buy a very broad range of global equities and bonds, with equity % from 20% to 100%. These have a fee in the 0.20 - 0.25% range. Really hard to beat, but you have to have a discount broker and enter the buy orders yourself. Probably easy for you given your previous trading history. Your biggest enemy will be yourself, having the discipline to stay invested and resist the temptation to vary from your strategy
2. Roboadvisor. These have a fee in the 0.6 - 0.7 range for the ETF MERs and Robo fee. For that they do the trades for you, and have a live voice on the phone for whatever reason. IMO it's a high fee for the value, and unlikely to outperform an asset allocation ETF.
3. A bank advisor that would sell that bank's mutual funds, with a fee of around 2% - 3%. About 1% of the fee goes back to the bank branch and advisor, so around $300 / year going to the branch and the rest of the MER going to the fund company on your $30k. How much professional management do you think that gets you?

MadCatz wrote: ↑ actively picking stocks is a zero-sum game long term. Just drop that 30k in an S&P 500 or Total Market index ETF and forget it: ZSP, XUU, XUS, TPU

will888 wrote: ↑ OP, your problem is you were trying to be an active investor. The outcome you experienced is typical of active investing. Just buy an index ETF and call it a day.

craftsman wrote: ↑ Not an entirely accurate statement. While the OP is trying to be an active investor, they probably don't have the knowledge/displine/experience to be good at it. Just like every other skill in the world, someone can try to do something but that doesn't mean they are any good at it or have the expertise at that skill to be good at it.

will888 wrote: ↑ I stand by my assertion that the outcome is typical. That means the majority of active investors will experience what OP experienced in the long term.

craftsman wrote: ↑ I would like to point out that most index ETFs are indirectly actively picking stocks. All of the large indexes (ie like the S&P500) use a process where stocks are selected by a committee to be included in/excluded out of the index that they are responsible for. Therefore, those stocks in those indexes have been actively picked to be in the index.

Deepwater wrote: ↑ Some indices, like the S&P 500 have a committee to review the stock that get added or deleted. They are still based on clearly defined rules, but the committee reviews and makes the final decision from among stocks that meet the criteria. Other indices like CRSP are purely rules based with specific investability screens. If a stock meets the add criteria it is added to the index. If it meets the drop criteria it is removed from the index. Typical criteria for inclusion to an index are market capitalization, free float, liquidity, trading volume, domicile. Passive indices don't try to predict future stock performance as inclusion criteria.

Although it's blurry these days, with more active ETFs being brought to market, or a new index constructed for a specific ETF. Investors, whether DIY or using an advisor, really need to investigate before buying anything.