“Assets Under Management” Advisors Many people claim that the best advisor is one who is paid as a function of your account size (i.e., your “assets under management” or “AUM”). AUM fees tie the advisor’s interests to yours—or so goes the claim. What they really do is tie the advisor’s interests to your account size, not to your overall financial well-being. For the most part, this is not a problem, but it does present a conflict of interests whenever the most appropriate thing for you to do is liquidate a part of your portfolio (for example, to pay down your mortgage, delay claiming Social
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