Find the Best Financial Advisors in Cincinnati, OH

Choosing a financial advisor in Cincinnati

Financial advisors in Cincinnati protect the value of your assets and your future investments. Using their skills and experience in asset management, financial advisors provide valuable insight into your past, current and future financial behavior to help you meet your goals. The right money advisor helps you set financial goals, make smart investments and worry less about your financial security and retirement.

Partnering with a financial advisor is a significant undertaking, but it is beneficial for people at any stage of life. While some advisors don’t have a minimum wealth requirement, if your advisor charges a percentage fee, they may have a minimum investment portfolio value. Minimum values can be anywhere from $500 for robo-advisors to $250,000 or more for top human financial advisors.

Types of financial advisors

There are many different types of financial advisors. You might meet with a financial planner, retirement advisor or even use a robo-advisor. Robo-advisors are asset management software platforms that generate a detailed financial plan using algorithms and involve limited human interaction.

When choosing a financial advisor in Cincinnati, it’s critical to know whether or not they are a fiduciary. According to the Department of Labor, a fiduciary must “run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries,” meaning they must always put your best interests first, regardless of their personal profit or loss. If your financial advisor is acting as a fiduciary, ask them to provide proof in writing.

Non-fiduciary advisors usually meet the so-called sustainability standard, which only requires them to advise you to make suitable choices. These advisors sometimes recommend a less-than-ideal but suitable course of action that benefits them or their partners more than acting in your best interest.

What is the cost of a financial advisor in Cincinnati?

The cost of a financial advisor in Cincinnati depends on whether you’re dealing with a fee-only, fee-based or commission-based advisor. Money advisors use a variety of different fee structures for asset management services, such as:

• Hourly rates
• Flat fees
• Monthly, quarterly or annual fees
• Commission
• Percentage of portfolio value

Fee-only advisors in Cincinnati charge you fees directly and can’t take money from third-party providers related to any asset management services they offer you. These fees might be hourly, flat or a percentage of your portfolio value, depending on the asset management services you’re getting. Many fiduciary advisors charge this way.

On the other hand, fee-based advisors in Cincinnati charge smaller fees but may still accept commissions from outside sources, which often lead to conflicts of interest. For instance, a fee-based advisor might get a commission for getting clients to invest in specific ways.

Financial advisors in Cincinnati that only make commission don’t require any upfront payment from you, but they may profit from outside sources or handle your investments in a way that generates more commission for them like making unnecessary transactions.

To mitigate this risk, ask your financial advisor how they make money and be aware of this bias when taking their advice on asset management.

What qualifications should a financial advisor have?

There are few regulations on who can call themselves a financial advisor. However, financial advisors in Cincinnati worth working with hold a bachelor’s degree and some form of industry certification, usually as a Certified Financial Planner.

Ask your financial advisor about his or her qualifications and additional questions like:

• Are you a fiduciary?
• How do you earn money?
• What fees can I expect?
• What’s your investment philosophy?
• How will we communicate?

You can look up background information on registered advisors in Cincinnati using FINRA’s BrokerCheck, including information on exams they’ve passed and which licenses they currently hold.

As you research financial advisors, keep an eye out for misrepresentation of qualifications, claims of market-beating performance and investment fraud like Ponzi schemes. Ask your financial advisor if they’ve ever been convicted of a crime or been under investigation by regulators. If you feel you are the victim of a scam, you can file a complaint with the Ohio Department of Commerce.