The journal
How to look up a financial adviser before you meet one
The SEC's public database, what a record shows, and what it means when a practice cannot be found there — as this demonstration one cannot.
AI-generated illustration. Not a real home or business.
One public database
You can look up any real adviser, and the people who work for it, at adviserinfo.sec.gov, the SEC's public database, which covers advisers registered with a state as well. A real practice gives you its name exactly as it appears there; this demonstration practice will not be found, because it does not exist.
Search for the practice by its name, and for each person you would work with by theirs. A practice can trade under a short name and appear in the record under a longer legal one, so if the first search finds nothing, ask for the exact name and try again.
Do it before the first meeting if you can. It takes a few minutes, and it changes the questions you will want to ask.
What a record shows
A real adviser's public record shows where it is registered and the documents it has filed, its brochure among them, and any disciplinary history; a person's record shows where they are registered and the firms they have worked for.
Read any disciplinary history slowly. A single old matter may mean little; a pattern means more. And read the brochure, which says in the practice's own words how it is paid and where the pull in that pay lies.
Look, too, at how a person's working life reads. Moving between firms is common and usually means nothing on its own; a string of short stays, each ending beside a disciplinary matter, is worth a question at the first meeting.
What the record cannot tell you
A clean record tells you that nobody has been found breaking the rules. It cannot tell you whether a planner listens, whether their fee suits your household, or whether you will understand the plan they write. Those you find out at a first meeting, by asking, and by noticing whether the answers are plain.
Where a real practice in New York is registered
New York's rule, and the federal rule that decides when a practice moves to the SEC, in their own words:
- N.Y. General Business Law § 359-eee(2)(a) (opens the source in a new tab) It is unlawful for an investment adviser to do business in or from New York until it has filed a registration statement with the Department of Law.
- Investment Advisers Act § 203A, 15 U.S.C. 80b-3a (opens the source in a new tab) An adviser regulated by its home state may not register with the SEC unless it manages at least $25 million, and in New York, which does not examine mid-sized advisers, an adviser registers with the SEC from that point.
A name that cannot be found
If a practice that is paid to advise you about investments cannot be found at all, stop and ask why before anything else happens. A website, a business card and a confident manner are not a record, and neither is a letter after a name.
This practice, looked up
The first section of this page already said that this practice will not be found, and that is the right result for a practice that does not exist. The rule it would have to meet if it were real, in its own words:
In New York, a practice that is paid to advise people about investments must register as an investment adviser: with the New York Attorney General's Investor Protection Bureau, or with the SEC once it manages $25 million or more. Each of its planners must also register and pass a securities law exam or hold a qualifying certification. This demonstration practice is fictional and holds no registration of any kind.
Treat every website the same way, this one included: a page can say anything, and the record is where you check it.
Ask for a first meeting
A first meeting costs nothing, gives no advice and asks nothing of you afterwards: about forty-five minutes, at the office or by video. The office replies in office hours.