What are the first steps?
Assess your priorities
Starting with an assessment of your own financial situation and requirements will help an adviser to identify your priorities and requierements in order to provide tailored advice for your needs.
Reach out
We will allocate an experienced advisor to you. However, should you be seeking a specific equity adviser, we will endeavor to identify the broker that you believe will suit your needs.
Insights
- How important is the stockbroker relationship in achieving outperformance?
- What kind of relationship with my clients achieves the best results.
- And for that matter what kind of client achieves the best results using my service.
This forum provides guidance and information that can educate and inspire thought and participation in the markets.
1) Have an open conversation with your broker
If you are new to share investing, your stockbroker can be an incredibly helpful guide and knowledge source to help you navigate many of the potential investment traps and mistakes that can be made when starting out.
2) Work out what relationship you want and make sure it’s not just an expensive echo
The mantra, “people get what they want out of the market”, rings true too often! Some people don’t play the stock market with the clear intent of making money. We have had clients that came into the market wanting to be highly profitable traders without ever reading a book or taking the time to flesh out a trading strategy or even actually wanting advice. The unfortunate reality of the market is that it doesn’t matter how successful you are in your chosen career, the market is its own beast, capable of humbling anyone who fails to give it the respect it deserves.
3) Consider if a Managed Discretionary Account is right for you
The most successful group of clients have been those that have entrusted us with their funds through a managed discretionary account. This allows us to make trades on a client’s behalf when time critical events don’t allow the opportunity nor the luxury to call a wide client list. This type of premium account will always receive our broker’s full attention, on a daily basis they will assess your portfolio’s holdings and scan the market for opportunities for you.
4) Collaboration is key
Making money is often a team effort and thus the decision making process and the investigative process often works better when both the broker and the client have their eye on the prize. Many clients will do their own research, others will have us do research for them. Clients that collaborate are often engaged, interested and want to learn more leading to better decision making.
5) Take on board stock recommendations
Some of our most successful clients have done very well simply by responding positively to our buy recommendations. Whilst not all recommendations pan out as anticipated, many have resulted in significant gains and more than made up for the losers. What usually works best is when our client is sufficiently engaged in the company’s progress so we can talk about the company and discuss the eventual exit strategy.
6) Get on the same page
When making an investment, certain things worth discussing with your broker are. Is this a short or long term investment, how risky is the opportunity, what are the potential catalysts that could send the stock higher, what happens if something goes wrong with the investment and thus what is the exit strategy in the event of success or failure. These discussions help align expectations – as well as establishing a harmonious partnership in which all parties can feel comfortable knowing what is likely to occur whilst holding the investment.
7) Don’t pay for a full brokerage service and not use the resource
Clients that don’t use their stockbroker as a valuable resource usually have made their own calls and done minimal research about their investment, and they aren’t interested in changing their minds. Hard to engage with, they are more in danger of losing wealth and blaming the broker.
8) Make sure you are on the correct mailing list
Being more involved and receiving the latest news is important !t Ensure that you are on the best buys list, the short term trading list, the IPO list, etc.
9) Get on the phone
Unfortunately a sad part of stockbroking is that often clients show little interest in learning more and, as a result, don’t make up a significant revenue stream leading to them often sitting, unnoticed for months if not years, on a broker’s client list. If you think you may be this type of client it is time to re-engage : It’s never too late to establish a better relationship with your advisor and let him or her know that you want them to be involved.
10) Educate yourself with our helpful resources
We have initiated improvements recently in our communication strategy at Landmark Financial that aim to re-engage with our clients and provide them with relevant insights to help them with their investment decisions. We are working on establishing a new insights section with our latest recommendations and market news. We have also improved our email platform to will allow faster and more effective communication with you when trade ideas and market news is sent out.