Are Fund Wholesalers, Advisors Overpaid?

Are mutual fund wholesalers and advisors under-stressed and overpaid? Well, the folks at U.S. News & World Report seem to think so.

According to the pub, wholesalers earn a media salary of $109,000 by trying “to make their offerings seem best” among retirement plans “but skepticism is an occupational hazard in this job”. Also, advisors who earn a median salary of $111,000, “sometimes hawk products on behalf of favored financial firms or advocate active trading, which racks up fees, rather than more proven buy-and-hold strategies.”

As well, some portfolio analysts who earn an average of $81,800 “overestimate their expertise or fail to acknowledge their limited ability to predict what might go wrong.”

According to the pub, it analyzed data provided by compensation research shop PayScale to highlight occupations characterized by relatively high pay for relatively easy work. PayScale sorted data on thousands of occupations to isolate those in which median pay is well above the norm.

“The final list includes jobs held by people who report relatively low levels of stress (a proxy for how demanding the work is) and who feel their job doesn't necessarily make the world a better place,” according to the pub.

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