A broker currently handles my investments. Isn't he or she a fiduciary?
Absolutely not. The broker industry’s long-standing business model is one of selling products, not providing objective advice. If the health care industry was set up like the financial service industry, doctors would have an education equivalent to a biology degree from college, work for a pharmaceutical industry, and be paid based on how many prescriptions he/she wrote. Sound crazy? Yet that is the way most financial services are still delivered through product sales.. A broker’s fiduciary duty is to his or her firm—not to his or her clients—although he or she will never tell you about this serious conflict of interest.