>Ask rich friends Agreed. This is the only thing I could come up with that would reasonably ensure that I would be talking to someone decent. Offtopic, but it

>Ask rich friends Agreed. This is the only thing I could come up with that would reasonably ensure that I would be talking to someone decent. Offtopic, but it is my belief that one of the strong factors in the perpetuation of wealth and associated wealth disparities in society is exactly this kind of information and knowledge asymmetry in the population, from access to the best advice (networks or simply the funds to gain access) to the osmosis-like uptake of information throughout one's childhood when raised in an affluent family/neighborhood/environment. >the financial advisor is simply a coin-operated sales guy Agreed. this is absolutely the mindset I tell all my friends to adopt, and to not be mislead by the title of "advisor", since they are anything but. >Odds are after you get past the glossy color printed custom, just-for-you, spiral bound investment plan, you will see a custom portfolio that will be assembled with MPT. Partially agreed. Most of the time, I agree that what will be pitched is a cookie cutter MPT set of assets/funds that, while often of somewhat marginally unideal quality, will generally get the job done. However, I have* seen and heard of absolutely horrible plans being thrown at naive new wealth people, and while "odds are" (as you say) this won't happen to you, it's still a non-neglible probability that you get wrapped up with some truly sleazy operations. That being said, your average American PWM firm/team/branch isn't likely to totally come after you like this. I think this is more likely to happen in Asia or Asian firms in the west.