Professionally Managed Advisory Programs
Client-Directed Advisory Programs
Advisory Services
- Your investments are important. Advisory services can help them receive the care they deserve.
- Your investments can be professionally managed or a Financial Advisor can help you manage them yourself.
- Wells Fargo Advisors programs allow flexibility to help you reach your goals.
Managing Investments
A lot may be riding on your investments: retirement, children’s or grandchildren’s education, your financial legacy. Your investment plan should get the attention it deserves.
Some investors enjoy managing their own plan. They are confident in their abilities and have the time to research and monitor their investments’ performance.
You’re not alone if you don’t fall into that category. Like many others, you may want to work with a professional by taking advantage of an advisory program.
Using an Advisory Program
You can save time and have a professional manage your investments when you use the services of an advisory program.
Advisory programs generally fall into two categories. One gives another party the power to make decisions for your account’s day-to-day management. This means you can allow a portfolio manager — in some cases your Financial Advisor — to decide when to buy, sell, and hold investments without consulting you.
Your portfolio manager will make decisions based on a variety of factors:
- Your long-term objectives
- The time you have to reach your objectives
- Your risk tolerance
In the other program, you collaborate with your Financial Advisor. We will provide you with objective advice and guidance based on your needs, goals, and today’s investment environment, to help you make your own buy, sell, and hold decisions.
Fee Replaces Commissions
So how can an advisory account differ from a traditional brokerage account? One difference is how you pay for the services you receive. In an advisory account program, you generally pay a fee. This is often charged on a quarterly basis based on a percentage of your account’s value. In a traditional brokerage account you would pay a commission for each transaction.
Flexible Range of Alternatives
You can choose which advisory services program you implement. Wells Fargo Advisors offers an array of programs. You can decide what products you would like to have managed, such as mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), stocks, bonds, and commodity-based investments.
We can discuss the programs with you and see what fits your situation – and what makes you feel more confident in helping you reach your goals.
Next Steps
Decide if you would like some extra help with making your investment decisions.
Make an appointment to talk with us about advisory accounts.
The fees for advisory programs are asset-based and assessed quarterly in advance. There may be a minimum fee to maintain this type of account. Fees include advisory services, performance measurement, transaction costs, custody services, and trading. These fees do not cover the fees and expenses of any underlying exchange traded fund (ETF), closed-end funds, or mutual funds in the portfolio. Advisory accounts are not designed for excessively traded or inactive accounts and are not appropriate for all investors. Please carefully review the Wells Fargo Advisors advisory disclosure document for a full description of our services, including fees and expenses. The minimum account size for these programs is between $10,000 and $2,000,000.
Why Advisory?
To succeed in today's complex markets, you need objective advice that you can rely on. Sometimes, the best advice is to hold steady and maintain your investments. Other times, the best advice is to take immediate action. Above all, you need advice you can trust. It can be challenging to keep abreast of the market and to continually manage and monitor your investment portfolio. With thousands of money managers, most people do not have the time or the resources to perform the necessary due diligence and analysis on the investments for their portfolio, or perform the necessary analysis to build a portfolio in the first place-rather than a collection of investments.
Advisory accounts give investors the opportunity to:
- consult with an investment professional
- receive advice on security selection and portfolio construction
- buy and sell securities for their portfolios without paying a commission for the trades*
*An annual fee (billed quarterly in advance), based on assets, is charged in our advisory accounts
The Advisory Process
As part of the advisory process, your Financial Advisor at Wells Fargo Advisors will work with you to determine the right asset allocation for your risk tolerance and investing timeframe and will regularly monitor your account, rebalancing when necessary to maintain the proper allocations. They will guide you through a four-step process for defining, developing, implementing and monitoring your personalized portfolio- management plan.
Define Goals & Priorities
- Clarify your specific investment needs and goals
- Determine your financial requirements, time horizons and liquidity concerns
Create Strategy
- Define your financial objectives, past investment experience and the amount of risk you feel comfortable assuming and your expectations
- Develop a clearly defined plan for pursuing your financial objectives. This strategy helps guide the selection of professional investment managers and the best mix of asset classes for your investment needs
Implement Investments
- Identify investment managers and strategies that can best meet your investment strategy
Monitor Life Cycle Changes & Investments
- Track the progress of your portfolio towards your investment goals
- Review and adjust investment decisions brought on by life changes
The Value of Advice
Following a disciplined investment process and working with a financial advisor can give you confidence that your investment portfolio is appropriate for you based on your investment goals, time frame and risk tolerance and that, with regular monitoring, you remain invested to meet those investment goals.
Wells Fargo Advisors offers numerous advisory programs to help you meet your investment goals, whether you are seeking a long-term asset allocation portfolio, have a need for income, or want to meet another specific goal.
You, and your financial advisor, may work together to create a customized portfolio, using a combination of investment products such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, etc. or you may choose to use one of our managed portfolios.
Within the Advisory Platform at Wells Fargo Advisors, we offer managed portfolios that are based upon the guidance of Wells Fargo Investment Institute's capital market assumptions, strategic asset allocations and the investment insight of the strategy teams to determine recommended portfolio allocations. These portfolios, managed by Wells Fargo Advisors, cover a wide spectrum of asset classes and a range of investment objectives and risk tolerances.
Why Managed Portfolios?
We mentioned earlier that individual investors may not be aware of, or follow, good investment disciplines, which may result in lower returns. Investing in a managed portfolio can help you benefit from the guidance of experienced professionals. In a managed portfolio, investment selection, due diligence, ongoing monitoring and documentation are provided, which can help ensure that your portfolio remains invested according to your investment objectives.
Utilizing a managed portfolio can offer you the confidence that your investments are being monitored as part of the due diligence process. And, as markets fluctuate, your portfolio is being rebalanced to remain consistent with your risk and return objectives, helping to remove the emotion of adjusting your portfolio based upon short-term market fluctuations.
Asset Allocation Portfolios
As part of the advisory process, your financial advisor will help you to determine your investment experience and how comfortable you are regarding risk in your portfolios. We offer nine asset allocation models from conservative to aggressive for investors seeking income, growth and income, or growth.
Within our advisory platform, our programs include portfolios that follow these asset allocation models with choices including mutual fund portfolios, individual stock and bond portfolios, ETF portfolios or mutual fund and ETF portfolios.
Objective Based Portfolios
As part of your overall investment strategy, there may be a need to invest for a specific objective - such as income or tax efficiency. As part of our advisory offerings, we provide portfolios, managed by Wells Fargo Advisors that may be appropriate for your investment needs.
Talk to your financial advisor about your specific financial needs and learn more about our available advisory portfolios.
Our Committment to You
The key to our success is treating each client as an individual and providing quality services and investment choices. Our Financial Advisors take great pride in preparing financial strategies and recommendations for you. They ensure that the information is clear, understandable, and focused on helping you reach your long-term financial objectives. We believe that each client deserves specialized investment advice. Our Financial Advisors spend considerable time preparing and developing individualized plans and investment strategies. We are careful to consider all factors relevant to investment decisions - risk/reward levels, life-stage planning, estate strategies and others, as appropriate. We are committed to designing customized and innovative ways to better serve you.
All investing involves some degree of risk, whether it is associated with market volatility, purchasing power or a specific security. There is no assurance any investment strategy will be successful or that a fund will meet its investment objectives. An investment in a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) will fluctuate and shares, when sold, may be worth more or less than their original cost. ETFs are subject to risks similar to those of stocks and may yield investment results that, before expenses, generally correspond to the price and yield of a particular index. There is no assurance that the price and yield performance of the index can be fully matched.
Asset allocation does not guarantee a profit or protect against loss.
Advisory accounts are not designed for excessively traded or inactive accounts and are not appropriate for all investors. Please carefully review the Wells Fargo Advisors advisory disclosure document for a full description of our services, including fees and expenses. The minimum account size for these programs is between $10,000 and $2,000,000.
Wells Fargo Investment Institute, Inc. is a registered investment adviser and wholly-owned subsidiary of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., a bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company.
Wells Fargo Advisors is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC, Members SIPC, separate registered broker-dealers and non-bank affiliates of Wells Fargo & Company.
© 2023 Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC. All rights reserved. CAR-0523-00583 (Resubmitted to Ad-Trax for new CAR Approval)
What Does It Mean to Be a Fiduciary?
Fiduciary duty represents the highest degree of trust and confidence that the investment advisor will act in your best interest.
Investment Advisors are governed by the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and applicable state securities laws, which govern conduct and disclosure requirements, creating a high legal standard referred to as “fiduciary” duty.
As a fiduciary, your investment advisor has the duty to:
- Make full and fair disclosure of all material facts, particularly where the advisor’s interests may conflict with the client’s
- Have a reasonable, independent basis for their investment advice
- Obtain best execution for clients’ securities transactions where the advisor is in a position to direct brokerage transactions
- Ensure that investment advice is suitable to the client’s objectives, needs and circumstances
- Refrain from effecting personal securities transactions inconsistent with client’s interests
- Be loyal to clients
How Do I Enter Into a Fiduciary Relationship With My Financial Advisor?
Only after you and the firm enter into an advisory agreement does the Financial Advisor have a fiduciary duty under the Investment Advisers Act. In such agreements, the firm and your Financial Advisor explicitly acknowledge an advisory relationship and obligations to you. When acting as your investment advisor, we provide you with disclosure documents about our Advisory services.
What Will Be the Role of Your Financial Advisor?
In advisory programs, your Financial Advisor will act as a consultant, helping you monitor performance and adjust your portfolio on an ongoing basis.
Advisory accounts are not designed for excessively traded or inactive accounts and are not appropriate for all investors. Please carefully review the Wells Fargo Advisors advisory disclosure document for a full description of our services, including fees and expenses. The minimum account size for these programs is between $10,000 and $250,000.
FAQs
Your quarterly advisory statement includes two line items titled Advisory Platform Fee and Advisory Account Credit. Your Financial Advisor ca address any questions you may have. In addition, we have prepared these frequently asked questions (FAQ) to help you understand these line items.
Does the advisory platform fee/advisory account credit apply to me?
The Fee applies to eligible Advisory program accounts invested for the entire previous calendar quarter and up to and including the day the charge is applied. Only Advisory accounts subject to the Fee will also receive the Credit.
Advisory clients with no mutual funds would still be subject to the Fee and Credit. The Fee and Credit are not exclusive to clients who own mutual funds. This broad application of the Fee and Credit helps our firm and Financial Advisors address conflicts of interest in the promotion, selection, and recommendation of Advisory programs.
The Fee and Credit will apply to all Advisory accounts except ERISA, SEP IRAs, SIMPLE IRAs, and Keoghs, whether or not they hold mutual funds. Also excluded are accounts help at third party custodians. The Fee and Credit apply only to the first $50 million of a client’s Account Value.
How does the fee and credit work?
We credit clients’ accounts based on the Platform Support we collect from mutual fund companies. This Credit operates to address the conflicts of interest associated with our collection of these amounts.
The Credit is based on the Account Value of the account calculated as a percentage of the aggregate value (determined as of the last day of such quarter) of all accounts (up to $50 million per account and subject to the other conditions detailed in the Client Agreement and Disclosure Document).
How much does this cost me?
The Fee is assessed at an annual fixed-rate basis point fee based on the Account Value.
If you view your statements online, the Fee and Credit line items were added beginning April 2019.
The Credit will vary over time based on the Platform Support we collect from mutual fund companies.
What does the fee cover? What is its purpose?
The Fee supports services we provide to maintain the platform for all Advisory accounts, including technology and recordkeeping services provided to mutual funds available on our Advisory platform.
Does my financial advisor benefit from the fee?
The Fee is separate from your annual Advisory fee and is not shared with Financial Advisors. The Fee has no impact on Financial Advisor compensation.
The Fee does not influence recommendations made by your Financial Advisor. The Fee and Credit are not exclusive to clients who own mutual funds. This broad application of the Fee and Credit helps our firm and Financial Advisors address conflicts of interest in the promotion, selection, and recommendation of Advisory programs.
What if I still have questions?
Your Financial Advisor and branch support staff are happy to help. Call or visit any time.
©2023 Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC. Wells Fargo Advisors is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC, registered broker/dealers and separate non-bank affiliates of Wells Fargo & Company. All rights reserved.
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