*Contributed by Andrew Altman of Slickbucks.
No one wants to trust their long-term financial security to a shady broker whose offered security-selling services may not be on the level.
Fortunately, there is an easy rule of thumb to follow when seeking out a brokerage that can fulfill your future needs: avoid any potential broker that doesn’t give you direct answers to your questions, and stick only with brokers that have information that is covered by various informational outlets.
You shouldn’t ever need to spend a lot of effort trying to affirm the integrity of a broker’s character, as the ones that are trustworthy always make that process easy for their clients.
Nonetheless, you should not rely purely on word-of-mouth to zero in on a broker that you can trust will properly sell you the securities you’ll need. There is a fairly involved research process that you should go through, but we explain in the following guide the best procedure you should take while going about it.