In this day and age the addition of an investment adviser is vital to the success of a retirement plan. It may not seem like it but this is going to have to at the very least be your fallback. A high percentage of retirees have one and as is dictated by the law of supply and demand there are investment advisers everywhere. Finding the right one can seem overwhelming, but there are some places that stands out more than others.
You can get a CPA which is a sort of corporate investment adviser, or you can simply get the regular investment adviser for personal needs. Their main job is to make investment suggestions and manage the investment financially in return for a percentage of the profit as well as a small set fee. It is usually a great idea for the investor because the better the service you are paying for the more you get back. Sometimes CPAs and even investment advisers are called financial analysts.
You can try to look through the phone book. Make sure to reference the businesses and make sure that they are reputable. I prefer to work online when I can and therefore I know more about the investment advisers that also advertise on websites. And once again there is an overwhelming amount but there are a few that have more universally high ratings than the others.
I think the first place you might try is www.MorganStanley.com. You can also try them at any local businessplace. The Morgan Stanley advisers are not only the most skilled but the most varied as well. Asking them an investment question is better than posting it on every good investing site in the web all at once…They tell you about the best capital markets and have a worldwide perspective. This website is a must.
I think the other monolith in the field is the Northwest Advisory Group. It is not as vast as Morgan Stanley but it makes up for it with the best investment analysts around. I think overall this rounds out as barely behind Morgan Stanley, and way ahead of the rest of the site.
If you want to get some free investment advice there are a few sources but to me there is one that really stands out. This is www.TheStreet.com and it is great. Going here you can subscribe to a free newsletter by the investing giant Jim Cramer that is emailed to you every week. Of course there are ads embedded in its pages but you can easily skip past these and get to a very good set of articles. Should be a first stop.
Investing in some sort of stocks or bonds is a necessity in this day and age, what with the recent legislation peeling back benefits and the instability of businesses crushing pensions left and right. Following the above advice as well as your own intuition will allow you to find one with a minimum of hassle and allow you to put you energy where it should be: on living the rest of your life.