I am relatively new to basel and am in a position where i want to invest for my retirement, I am unsure how this works and need some professional adsvice, my query is does anybody know any international companies who can help me, like an independent broker who can offer me advice. I have been to my bank but they were only pushing their own investment policies and I am not sure i trust my bank at the moment in view of the current economic situation. Any help would be appreiciated.

I just pm'd you kirsty!

Be very careful, there are many hard sell types around who will try and lure you into a fantastic sounding investment, who say that are independent when they are not, and take a large portion of your premiums as commission, these people in my opinion are not to be trusted, many do not have financial qualifications, and they are all only interested in their own commissions, take lots of advice first, do not jump in, take your time to decide which is the best option for yourself, as there are many different options to consider, the savvy take their time, fools rush in, decide in haste , repent at leisure,

Bottom line is, its your money, dont hand the first two years of your premiums to a salesman, make sure it is invested, established banks have a bad reputation at the moment and rightly so, but so called IFA`s are even worse, they wont be there in 15 years when you need their advice and they are not transparent, I know I`ve been there and done that, so just be careful.

Hello Kirsty3.
My professoinal career, since 1980, is the investment/finance industry.
Since 1998, I became President & CEO of the 3 Firms:
Investment Securities Broker/Dealer, Member: FINRA (NASD).
Investment Advisor Firm.
Asset Management Firm.
I'm originally from the USA, but live in Europe 25 years (since 1985), and I'm located in Basel & our Farm is located about 20 km's from Basel, in France.
www.bmsinvest.com is my Firm's main web site.
hsmith@bmsinvest.com is my personal address.
I do not push any products.
Please feel free to contact me at your convenience.
Best regards,
Hank (Henry) Smith

Great advice, Manouche!

This should help you understand more about investing in general:
http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/begininvest.htm

P.S.
Also Kirsty...you say you are new to Basel. Where are you from, originally? It could make a difference where you are a Citizen (tax laws, etc). You said your objective is to invest for retirement.
You're in Basel, Switzerland. Switzerland has some of the best banks in the World, and many excellent asset managers and some very good advisors too, and good performing mutual funds as well...
I explained my position to you earlier (100% independent). I'm about 20 km's from Basel and will be glad to meet with you most anytime. Our Fee's are fair and reasonable.
Best regards,
Henry (Hank) Smith

I have been investing for years, based on daily extensive research and evaluation of investing choices. In general, many research sources report that over the years the maximum gains are generated by investing in companies. For individuals, the gain is far greater than investing in CDs, treasuries, bonds, currencies.

For most people the easiest and safest is to invest in a mutual fund with ten years of proven performance. The best website for objective, unbiased comparisons of published facts is:

http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/fund...spx?lang=en-GB

You should contact my accountant. She is Swiss and her husband is a financial planner. She speaks English and is very knowledgeable. She helped me 2 years ago to get started. Her name is Denise and her email is denise.collin@colfina.ch you can also look at there website www.colfina.ch Tell her Barry sent you! Hope this helps!

Absolutely. And even if you think you're being careful, be even more careful...! They can sound so convincing. The so-called "IFA" I encountered said all the right things and had a convincing answer to every question (questions found in a Financial Services Authority advice booklet on questions to ask your financial advisor...!). He said that they were 100% independent and searched the "whole market" (when it subsequently turned out that they only brokered investments for a handful of companies). He himself was supposedly not only qualified as an IFA but had 20 years' experience working for a well-known financial firm. The only trouble was that, when I asked him the same question a few of weeks later, he claimed to have 20 years' experience working for a different financial firm...

I came to the conclusion that he, at least, was prepared to say what needed to be said in order to get me to sign on the dotted line. But I had already signed up by that time.

Judging from the small print of the contract (only available once you signed up, and then you had 30 days in which to cancel), the investment was actually like
this: How expats are exploited by the offshore financial services industry

Some more info:
Unethical or Duped Financial Planners / Insurance Agents / Accountants / Lawyers

How you can spot a con artist

I think it's a good idea to do a lot of research about these companies beforehand, e.g. by Googling "name of company" plus "I", "me", "my" to see what previous clients have to say about them, or looking for recruitment adverts for the company to see what kind of qualifications their financial advisors need. (It turned out that the "IFAs" employed by the company I dealt with were recruited as salespeople and underwent further training in financial sales. They used the same jargon as financial advisors in order to conceal the fact that they were salesmen, e.g. describing themselves as "IFAs" and calling their sales pitch a "fact find".) If the individual is honest, they should have no qualms in proving that they're properly qualified and in you cross-checking with whichever body they claim to have the qualification from.

Hi there

I would say that any financial advisor is just another sales person unfortunately. The only advice you should take is from someone who really cares about your personal benefits like friends or your self :-) The more complicated the financial product, the better for the sales person = financial advisor since it has less transparency (higher costs, more insecurity, more derivatives?). You should be able to understand what they are saying, if they can't explain it in a simple way then it's a lack of understanding of the product. Using financial terminology to make you confused is not a sign of professionalism. I would recommend reading and learning on your own and then choosing your financial products on your own.

seems like it will suit here more then GBP/CHF thread

Is it the right time to invest in euro ?

today : 1 = 1.3519

lowest is 5 years was 1.347

http://www.nzz.ch/finanzen/devisen/_...URITY_TYPE=CUR

you couldnt sound any more dodgy if you tried.

Lowest was end of June 2010 @ 1.31

About "Is it the right time to invest in euro ?" Depends if you think Greece, Ireland et al will drag the euro into an early grave or not.

agree. i actually ordered the materials and exams that an IFA has to learn and pass to qualify - it was quite instructive - and was interesting to see where they are coming from and some of the principles applied.

however, i agree that only you know your risks and desired returns and now i make all investments myself. after all an IFA only has (or should have) a better knowledge of products. they can't magically guarantee you a rate of return or make your investments less risky.

you can get an immediate boost on return by cutting out the middlemen.

Depends what you mean by invest for retirement; do you mean to try to increase your capital or to keep it safe at the same level?

At the moment with many people worrying about a possible double dip recession it might turn out to be a terrible time to invest in companies.

If you simply want to keep your money safe you could do some research into Swiss property prices - they have a history of being reasonably stable & are unlikely to crash down like UK/USA because they never did soar up. Or consider keeping your money in Swiss francs which have also proved very stable or better (versus $ & euro) over the long term.

Remember if you invest in anything that is not denominated in Swiss Francs then you have to factor in a currency conversion risk - if the investment rises 5% and the Swiss France rises 6% versus the investment currency then you are already 1% down.

As others said if you invest in something where the salesman gets the first year or 2 years payments as commission then it would have to be a stormingly good investment for you to ever actually gain anything.

Finally remember the old maxim if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is not true.

I am not expecting a major boom in euro soon enough but 20 cents up can give a profit of 1000 franks on a investment of 50,000 chf (within 3 months) actually thats not bad

I am not a economist but the trend of previous 5 years was not so bad

plus* i would like to know more opportunities to invest other then saving accounts, bonds and lottery tickets

about "the trend of previous 5 years was not so bad"
Ummmmm... 5 years ago 1.55 Chf would buy 1 euro , today you only need 1.35Chf to buy 1 euro - you think that is not bad? Roughly a 13% drop in the value of the euro versus the CHF?

By trend i mean/expect some thing like this

p.s within this discussion euro have gained .02

it was 1.345 and now 1.347

Good luck