I often ask folks about their current and past money managers. Whether they are prospective clients or it comes up amongst acquaintances in general conversation; I consistently find that people do not really know much about their money managers or how they operate.

These holds true among self-managers too. I will learn that someone is a self-manager and ask them about their investing strategy and nine out of ten times they are unable to articulate in any decipherable way what their investing philosophy or strategy is.

I plan to occasionally write posts about money managers. These posts will range from how various firms are structured to how various managers collect fees, and most importantly how they create and implement recommendations for their clients.

I am using the catchall term of money manager, because the list of what these professionals refer to themselves as is very long. There are financial advisors, financial planners, wealth advisors, investment advisors, wealth managers, investment counselors, financial advisers, and investment advisers to name a few. Others refer to themselves simply as money managers.

The list of how they refer to themselves is endless, and sadly there is little set standard for this. A professional at Northwestern Mutual may refer to himself as a financial advisor, but only sell insurance products and do no portfolio management at all. Another professional working for Morgan Stanley may refer to himself as a financial advisor and do portfolio management, but sell no insurance products.

I personally refer to myself as an Investment Adviser, but could just as easily use one of the above mentioned titles.

One thing a money manager can’t just throw around though, is a professional designation such as CFP, CFA, and CPA. Those designations require meeting certain requirements, passing tests, and paying a board annually to renew the designation. There will likely be a post in the future covering professional designations.