What Is a Fiduciary?

We are a fee-only adviser. Our fee is simple: It’s determined by the size of the portfolio we manage for you. This aligns our incentives with yours—we do better when you do better. While you pay transaction charges directly to a third-party custodian who holds your investments, we do not receive those commissions. So, while some financial professionals may call you to sell products or earn sales commissions, we only trade in your portfolio when we believe it is in your best interest based on our forward-looking market forecast.

Since we began managing discretionary assets in 1979, we’ve been structured to minimize conflicts of interest common in our industry. We intentionally separated our sales, client service and portfolio management responsibilities, allowing us to focus our employees' efforts and build efficiencies in each area. We are solely an investment manager and we do not engage in other business activities such as investment banking, insurance sales, custodial services, or other activities that attempt to sell you additional financial products. This specialization and investment management focus helps ensure our clients’ best interests and long-term goals are best served.

We work with third-party custodians to house our clients’ assets. These relationships help provide transparency consistent with our fiduciary duties and instill trust in our asset management duties. When Fisher Investments first began managing client assets, our founder Ken Fisher knew that having an independent third party who provides regular client reporting was crucial to fostering client relationships. This means that, though Fisher Investments generates its own client reports, your custodian also provides regular reporting for your accounts, so you know what’s going on.

We believe good investment advice focuses on your long-term goals and your interests as a client, which is why we offer a holistic approach to help you reach your long-term financial goals. As a client, you have access to an array of services. We can help, whether it’s defining our initial investment strategy, mapping out the impact of different investment decisions, helping create an estate plan or offering a suite of financial planning resources that can help you navigate life's major milestones—like transitioning into retirement, estate planning and more. We take the time to understand you, your family and your overall financial situation. Then, we work with you to help identify and evaluate your investment goals and objectives so we can provide resources and help you take specific, actionable steps toward achieving your goals.