Paper details:

What are the pros and cons of using the Internet to choose and manage your investments?

The internet revolutionized a lot of industries, but few more so than the financial services industry. The internet served to give people 24 hour access to their accounts, and dropped commissions and fees seemingly overnight. Investors could now be their own research department and account manager, and adviser. This was a great positive, but it can also be a huge negative.

We tend as humans to think that we can do most anything. We use the internet to trade our investment accounts, diagnose our ailments, and even to become amateur authors. The problem is we also have a tendency to lend a lot of credence to what we hear on the internet, and as a result can be easily misled. I may sound a little archaic in this statement, but there is a lot to be said for employing a seasoned professional to assist us with things as important as our health and our money. Managing our funds online with no assistance is definitely the most cost effective course of action, but going it alone may not be the most prudent course of action. When employing an adviser, we can still get the online access we desire, as well as the objective guidance we as investors need to make a good decision. Full disclosure, this comes straight from the mouth of a former adviser, so I may not have the most objective opinion. What are your thoughts?