Have no idea which financial advisor you should choose in Massachusetts? Benzinga has done the research and narrowed down the top financial advisors in the state. Compare and contrast the offerings and fee structure of the following advisors in Massachusetts.
Best Financial Advisors in Massachusetts Near You:
- Best for Team Approach: Beaumont Financial Partners LLC
- Best Robo-Advisor: M1 Finance
- Best for Comprehensive Wealth Management: Whitman Financial Services LLC
- Best Mobile App: Betterment
- Best for Retirement Planning: Thompson Wealth Management Ltd.
- Best Portfolio Analysis: Personal Capital
- Best for Personal Approach: Lowell Blake & Associates
- Best for Investment Approach: Abbot Financial Management
Best for Team Approach: Beaumont Financial Partners LLC
Beaumont Financial Partners is an investment advisory firm located in Needham, Massachusetts. The firm offers a range of wealth management services to affluent individuals and families, small businesses and nonprofits.
Beaumont specializes in adopting a team approach to helping you with your unique needs. The firm utilizes cross-discipline expertise from investment services to tax preparation so it can work with you on multiple fronts.
Beaumont’s primary business is investment management. It also offers tax advisory services, estate planning, life cycle planning, generational planning and insurance planning.
- A percentage of assets under your management
- Hourly charges
- Fixed fees (other than subscription fees)
- Other
- Financial planning services
- Pension consulting services
- Selection of other advisers (including private fund managers)
- WRAP PROGRAMS/MODEL MANAGER/SUB-ADVISOR
Address
250 1ST AVENUE SUITE 101NEEDHAM MA, 02494
Phone number
781-400-2800
- Customizable Auto Investing
Best Robo-Advisor: M1 Finance
M1 Finance is not your average money management platform. It offers a hands-on approach to managing your money with its seamless platform. You can do any of your daily financial activities with M1 — spend, invest and even borrow money.
M1 allows you to build a portfolio of stocks and ETFs, make direct deposits, transfer money, borrow up to 35% of your portfolio’s value and much more. The best part about M1? It’s free!
If you want more perks like cashback and the opportunity to borrow at a low interest rate, you can opt for the M1 Plus account. The account has an annual charge of $125 but requires no minimum balance.
Best for Comprehensive Wealth Management: Whitman Financial Services LLC
Whitman Financial Services is an independent financial planning, tax preparation and investment advisory firm located just north of Boston. The firm has been around for over 3 decades and has over 200 individual and corporate clients.
The firm offers a wide range of financial services for individuals (including couples and families) and businesses. Its specialties include individual financial and retirement planning, cash flow analysis, asset allocation, tax review, estate planning and much more.
- ETF Investors
Best Mobile App: Betterment
Betterment makes investing easy for any investor. It redesigned its mobile app in 2019, making it more user-friendly and convenient than ever before. The app manages your money and invests it in a recommended portfolio when you deposit. It also handles the trading and rebalancing for you.
Betterment lets you choose between 2 plans — Betterment Digital and Premium. The Digital plan requires $0 to get started and charges 0.25% annual fee of assets under management (AUM). The Premium plan requires a $100,000 account minimum and charges 0.40% AUM as an annual fee. This plan gives you unlimited phone access to certified financial planners (CFP®s).
Betterment’s customer support is available 5 days a week and supplemental advice packages start at $199.
Best for Retirement Planning: Thompson Wealth Management Ltd.
Thompson Wealth Management (TWM) is a registered advisory firm located in Concord, Massachusetts. The firm offers financial planning and investment management services.
TWM specializes in offering plan and participant level fiduciary advice and investment management services to retirement plans such as defined benefit, profit sharing and 401(k) plans. The firm helps employees improve their retirement planning outcomes by reforming the way company 401(k) plans are managed.
- High Net Worth Individuals
Best Portfolio Analysis: Personal Capital
Personal Capital is a robo advisory platform that gives you a 360-degree view of all your accounts in 1 secure place to help manage your finances. It offers free investment management tools to get an accurate view of your net worth, track your retirement plan and much more.
Prefer having your portfolio managed by a real person? Personal Capital offers managed services for those with an account minimum balance of at least $100,000. Personal Capital’s advisors can also help you with tax optimization strategies and analyze your personal long- and short-term goals.
Best for Personal Approach: Lowell Blake & Associates
Lowell Blake & Associates (LBA) is an independent registered investment advisory firm based in Boston. The firm offers investment management and financial planning services to individuals, families, endowments and charities, foundations and law firms.
LBA takes a personal approach to investing. Its team builds a distinct custom portfolio for each client, based solely on what they want and need. The team handpicks individual stocks and bonds to build client portfolios and does not utilize mutual funds or ETFs. In choosing securities, the firm identifies companies that have positioned themselves for long-term growth.
Best for Investment Approach: Abbot Financial Management
Abbot Financial Management (AFM) is a privately-owned, independent asset manager located in North Andover, Massachusetts. The firm has been around for more than 3 decades, providing investment services to individuals, families, corporations, retirement plans and foundations.
AFM specializes in helping you get a consistent, dependable, investment return from a high-quality portfolio of stocks and bonds. While being sensitive to your risk parameters, its goal is to protect your assets and grow principal. The firm adopts 4 investment strategies to achieve this goal — Abbot core dividend equity strategy, focused growth strategy, fixed income strategy and global equity fund strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Which certifications should my financial planner have?
A: The top certifications for all-round financial advice include the chartered financial analyst (CFA) and certified financial planner (CFP). There are other certifications that qualify a financial planner, but the CFA and CFP designations are the most prestigious.
Q: What’s the difference between financial planning and retirement planning?
A: The top certifications for all-round financial advice include the chartered financial analyst (CFA) and certified financial planner™ (CFP®). There are other certifications that qualify a financial planner, but the CFA and CFP® designations are the most prestigious.
Q: How can I research the background of my financial advisor?
A: You can look up your financial advisor on official sources such as the investment adviser public disclosure website and the BrokerCheck website. You can enter a financial advisor’s CRD number or firm name and find out everything you need to know.
Find a Financial Advisor in Massachusetts
Massachusetts is home to a lot of great financial advisors. When choosing a financial advisor, ensure you interview several professionals before you narrow in on the right one for you. Ask a lot of questions to see if the firm can cater to your specific financial needs.
Methodology
To determine the top financial advisors in Massachusetts, we pored through all SEC-registered advisory firms that have an office in Massachusetts. We winnowed the list by only including advisors that are registered fiduciaries, have no past disclosures and have minimal personal conflicts of interest. To further break down the list to the true top advisors in the area, we gave weight to advisors that offer both investment management and planning, have no conflicts of interest, have offices in multiple states, have a wrap fee program and over $50 million in assets under management.