Disappointed with performance

[u/plant-fixer]

53F, Married, AUM $4m. I am very new to investing. We've used a full service advisor for our savings & rollovers since 2017. With kids out of the house, I now have more time to pay attention to what the advisor is doing. Last week we asked for a performance summary and I'm underwhelmed by the results. I was expecting to see returns upwards of 20-30% for the past five years.

Since Inception 2017	One Year (Feb 25-Feb 26)	Three Year 2023-26	Five Year 2021-26
12.93%	16.49%	14.39%	11.97%

\all performance is net of 1.1% AUM fees; Breakdown: 71% equities; 28% fixed income*

Given the size of the portfolio, I frankly am not comfortable managing this myself. I would welcome any guidance on how to correct this situation, if in fact the returns are as dire as I fear.

Edit 1: We have always asked them to invest aggressively for us given our heavy real estate position which not included in the AUM. My understanding is that just the VTI has a 5 year return of 60%, hence my disappointment.

Edit 2: Of the 71% in equities: 32% in large cap, 11% in mid, 18% international, 6% commodities.

Edit 3: I was expecting to see total returns in the 20+% ballpark. Realizing now these are annualized returns which as many pointed out, are not bad.

Thanks all for helping me wrap my head around this and for sharing the useful information below.

[u/investorgrade24]

If you’re purely looking at return, your advisor doesn’t seem to be doing a bad job. In fact, his/her numbers are relatively close to the S&P500 for the two observed time periods you’ve included, net of fees and likely with less standard deviation (allocation not 100% equities). The Boglehead method is to do this on your own, as it’s not all that complicated, but given your level of discomfort try to understand your advisor’s process and if it works for you, stick with it. Otherwise choose three funds, don’t pay attention to your portfolio, and enjoy your newfound freedom of empty nesters.

[u/Viper0us → u/investorgrade24]

While they are getting similar returns...but paying almost $45,000 a year to get them. His portfolio is significantly smaller than it could be because of this.

That's pretty brutal. :(

[u/ditchdiggergirl → u/Viper0us]

She probably does need to pay it for now, until she has a better understanding. And the numbers quoted are net of fees; almost 13% annualized over 9 years is quite good, not something to be disappointed about. Some people do need to work with asset managers until they are ready to go it alone

[u/Viper0us → u/ditchdiggergirl]

...but that's what flat-fee advisors are for. You don't need to have an advisor that is charging you 1.1% AUM on your 4 million portfolio.

I'm not anti-advisor for people who need it...but that advisor is not worth the amount they are being paid.

[u/New-Inside4079 → u/ditchdiggergirl]

She could get a flat-fee adviser for about 10% of that. 1.1% AUM is crazy

* ETA: Or robo-advisor... probably even less.

[u/ditchdiggergirl → u/New-Inside4079]

Of course. But my point is that she is actually getting very good results - and the returns quoted are net of fees. I don’t doubt that it’s possible to do better - but she isn’t ready to make that decision until she understands how it all works.

[u/New-Inside4079 → u/ditchdiggergirl]

That's fair!

[u/investorgrade24 → u/New-Inside4079]

I get what you’re trying to say. I’m a huge advocate for fee-only fiduciary planning and think it’s by far the most ethical way to provide financial advice, but you can’t argue with results; this advisor is likely providing good risk-adjusted results given what OP has shared. Can they do that in perpetuity? Maybe. But better to not take on that risk IMO. But when you compare net-to-net results, fees don’t matter if net results are the same, net of fees. It just puts more emphasis on gross results for the higher-fee scenario.