The issue I have is that it sounds like you are not giving her well-rounded advice. There's no simple solution that works for each person. Based on her age, her net worth, rick profile, what she plans to do with remaining years, SS income, other income, inheritances, liquidity profile, etc., you would need to give her well rounded advice for all of her options. Maybe risk free rates is good for her if a 15%-25% drop will be life changing and has liquidity issues and perhaps is risk adverse. It's not necessarily the answer for everyone. So my thought would be to give her all of her options, lay out all aspects of what she should be thinking about, and then let her know how she can open an account on her own and you will assist her with pairing ETFs (she can buy them). You could charge her for say pairing ETFs and showing that they will provide the risk profile she is looking for, but that's only a couple hundred bucks, so as someone said, probably don't charge her. I am just a little worried that you are not providing her all of the options and why she would choose A verse B.
Yeah I agree… but her big problem right now is dealing with this broker. I think that getting her into a more reputable brokerage house is a reasonable first step.
Have you considered that she may have relatives and/or heirs? Do you really want to be answering to them in the future if (when!) your suggestions go south and you aren't licensed? Not at all worth the risk. Walk away.
If this was my friend and they asked, or brought up any dissatisfaction they had with their situation, I would offer to help them for free. Mostly because they’re my friend and because I hate to see brokers ripping off people with high fees or bad investment products when, for example cheaper ETFs or lower fee brokerages, are available at a fraction of the cost. As for payment, if they wanted to give me a nice Christmas gift or a big check at the end of the year I wouldn’t say no but there would be no expectation. After all that’s the kind of thing friends sometimes do for each other. As a practical matter, the regulators rarely get involved in small situations like this. It’s one thing if you’re running a whole business advising people full time, bringing in lots of income, and don’t have the right tests and registrations. It’s quite another thing to do a little small, one off advice when no one involved is going to complain.
I never get involved with other people's money. To me, it is literally no different than fixing someone's computer. Whatever they are going to pay you is not going to be worth the headache. I wouldn't want the headache of being a financial advisor or computer tech professionaly and at scale so they are both even worse as a one off.
It's problematic when he starts peddling one of his themes like put everything in GICs. If you follow OPs content he's been jumping from theme to theme often chasing late cycle without doing proper research. That's ok if it's his money.