Where Can I Get Good Investment Advice

Hi

I have some money invested in EBS funds and am unhappy with the returns. I am presently looking at all the various investment fund options and the conclusion I have come to is that I need sound investment advice.

Can anyone direct me towards someone with a good track record, who can give unbiased, independent advice, and who I would pay for the advice.

Thanks

You should talk to a good authorised advisor or multi-agency intermediaries. Avoid tied agents unless you already know what you want and don't expect advice. IFSRA can furnish you with a list of regulated intermediaries. www.MyAdviser.ie have an online advisory service that was mentioned here recently. I have no experience with them though. There are lots of other authorised advisors out there who compete with them. I have done some business through www.ferga.com and would recommend Liam Ferguson as a good multi-agency intermediary. Not sure that he does general financial health checks/reviews as a matter of course though. Again there are lots of other multi-agency intermediaries out there too.

Thanks Clubman

You could look in to Rabodirect.

They offer a large array of funds from a number of providers and the entry/exit costs are pretty low.

Unfortunately, in order to achieve greater returns you generally have to take larger risks. So first thing is work out your risk profile (there are some tools on a number of the banks web pages for working this out). You also then need to assess your time frame (do you have a specific goal in mind - e.g. saving for a wedding etc) - if you require access to your funds within the next 3-5 years I wouldn't recommend using anything other than low risk funds and cash (i.e. savings accounts).

Once you know these 2 things, you'll be in a better position to assess which funds suit your profile and do your research.

What I've found with funds from the likes of AIB etc is that any gains you do make are offset by their hefty fees (typically 5% entry/exit and 1-5% management fee per year). With Rabo it's typically 0.5 - 0.75% entry/exit and no management fees.

If you want to learn more on your own and take a more direct approach I'd recommend reading a few books on the subject (such as "the intelligent investor" by Ben Graham) and regularly reading articles from the likes of the motley fool website (www.fool.co.uk).

Best of luck

The original poster is looking for advice. RaboDirect do not provide this.

technotastic said:

With Rabo it's typically 0.5 - 0.75% entry/exit and no management fees.

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There are management fees on those funds, mostly 1.2 - 2.0 %
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And it's typically 0.75% on entry, 0.75% on exit as well as the annual managment fee. Not that competitive in my view.

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well, Privinv... as regards rabo vs EBS... Rabo is now managed by the same guys (mopntgomery oppenheim) who managed your ebs funds.

Your ebs investment will now be managed differently by new fund managers irish life, so if you changed to rabo would you not be basically sticking with what you had at the ebs (which you have been unhappy with) except with more charges ?