Chuck Jaffe: Should you fire your financial adviser? Not when you’re angry about losing money in the stock market.

Nobody fires their financial adviser when the stock market is up. But when times get tough, no adviser does their job well enough. Consumers are as fickle over the managers of their money as the owners of pro sports teams are about the coaches they employ, but the big difference is that in sports there is always a winning team whereas a bad market can make everyone a loser.

Warren Buffett has famously said that “only when the tide goes out do you learn who has been swimming naked.” In the world of consumer-adviser relationships, when the tide runs out, the customer sees issues with the adviser without recognizing the same in themselves. It’s no surprise that consumers frustrated with big losses in the market last year are considering taking it out on advisers now. The more people hear stories about people being dissatisfied with brokers and planners, the more they are likely to raise their hand and think “Me too.” That doesn’t make firing your adviser the right move, particularly when disappointment is tinged by a bad year. Look beyond the expected discomfort consumers had with full-service investment advisers over the market’s decline …

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