While separately managed accounts have gained popularity with affluent investors over the past few years, they do carry some major drawbacks, Wall Street Journal columnist Terri Cullen reports.
"Theyre glorified mutual funds, only more expensive," Robert O'Dell, a financial adviser for high-net-worth clients with
With mutual funds, performance is widely reported on. Investors can easily find out how their investments are faring. In fact, its the law that fund companies disclose how their holdings are faring. But with SMAs, there are no such laws. And while
- One of the benefits of SMAs is that they give a client extremely personal service. But access to a portfolio manager is usually reserved for the financial adviser or planner that helped the client open the SMA rather than the client him/herself. Being able to get right through to a human being handling your finances is a great advantage of SMAs, but its that adviser or planner that reaps the benefits of the close contact.
Another seemingly great but sometimes annoying feature of SMAs is the frequent updates investors receive. Often, the account statements, tax forms, etc., can add up to a huge and annoying stack of papers on an investors desk.
This is not to say that the cons outweigh the pros in the SMA industry, but it goes to show that not every investment tool is right for everyone.
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