Who Is A Financial Advisor?

A financial adviser is a professional who renders investment advice and financial planning services to individuals and businesses. Ideally, the financial advisor helps the client maintain the desired balance of investment income, capital gains, and acceptable level of risk by using proper asset allocation. Financial advisers use stock, bonds, mutual funds, real estate investment trusts (REITs), options, futures, notes, and insurance products to meet the needs of their clients. Many financial advisers receive a commission payment for the various financial products that they broker, although "fee-based" planning is becoming increasingly popular in the financial services industry.

Goals
The main purpose of a financial adviser is to assist clients in the planning and arrangement of their financial affairs, such as savings, retirement provisions, tax treatment and wills. To ensure ethical practices, financial advisers must understand a client's financial situation as well as their need for financial stability. Finance can be complicated and any adviser has responsibilities ethically to see that a client's risk is minimized, and monetarily, that money is maximized.