[Hugh R]

I was in one of those financial planning things with a major broker and they charge me about 1.5% to manage my account. From 1999 to 2003 they managed to loose me about 25% of my portfolio. And collected about 20K for the priviledge of doing so! Bottom line, they have no guaranteed return for you and a guaranteed fee for them. I switched to Schwab and do my own investing. The S&P 500 did 9.9% annual return over the last 15 years, they gave me 6.6% AND charged me about the same 1.5%. Look at Schwab or some other online broker before you sign on. Its easy to research, and fees are a lot smaller.