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 | Investor Education Information is essential to wise investing. Your independent Manulife Securities Financial Advisor has the knowledge and expertise to help you decide on the best way to achieve your financial goals. There are also steps that you can take to educate yourself to become a wise investor and avoid potential pitfalls. Canada’s investment industry is one of the most regulated in the world. Our laws, regulations and professional standards are meant to ensure that investors have access to a stable investing environment and can judge for themselves if the risk of a particular investment is acceptable for them. Manulife Securities strongly promotes and supports this stable environment. However, the best laws and regulations in the world can’t eliminate all risks, nor eradicate all crime. Anyone with money to invest is a potential target for fraudsters and scam artists. Recent research has belied the idea that it is lonely, vulnerable senior citizens who are mainly at risk. Even people with above average education and income can find themselves victims of fraud. Help yourself by being aware of how fraudsters operate. Here are some red flags to watch out for:
The presence of any of these conditions should be enough to warn you to seek more information before proceeding further. What can you do to protect yourself?
Financial advisors and their dealers must be registered with the appropriate provincial securities commissions and self-regulatory organizations. Manulife Securities and all of our independent Financial Advisors are so registered. Furthermore, there are separate qualifications and licences for people who offer mutual funds, deal in securities or offer insurance products. Manulife Securities is responsible to supervise Manulife Securities activity conducted by our Advisors. If you are not certain what constitutes Manulife Securities activity, please refer to the Important Client Information booklet. If you don’t know what qualifications and licenses your financial advisor maintains, you should ask. The best protection available to investors is knowledge about what they are investing in together with the status and reputation of their dealer and financial advisor. Information is also readily available through the provincial securities commissions and self-regulatory organizations that oversee dealers and their advisors. Many of these organizations provide valuable education for investors on their websites. For your assistance, Berkshire is pleased to provide links to some of those websites: Related links
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