Apparently financial advisers give shit advice because that’s the advice they give themselves…..
Abstract
A common view of retail finance is that conflicts of interest contribute to the high cost of advice. Using detailed data on financial advisors and their clients, however, we show that most advisors invest personally just as they advise their clients. Advisors trade frequently, chase returns, prefer expensive, actively managed funds, and underdiversify. Advisors’ net returns of -3% per year are similar to their clients’ net returns. Advisors do not strategically hold expensive portfolios only to convince clients to do the same; they continue to do so after they leave the industry.
More here – SSRN
For those of you wandering about the abbreviation SSRN, it stands for Social Science Research Network.
They can afford to follow their own crappy advice because they also make a tidy living from the trailing income of the crappy advice they sell while at the same time assuring their clients that this how they invest their own money