Josh Brown linked a story today that touches on the history of the price tag:
About 140 years ago, a retailer named John Wanamaker figured his customers and salesmen had better things to do than spend hours haggling. His invention: Assigning one price, “plainly marked,” to every product.
The price tag caught on nearly everywhere with one major exception: financial services. Investors still have a surprisingly difficult time figuring out what they’ll pay for financial advice, for mutual funds and especially for their retirement plans.
Most independent, fee-based financial advisers have moved to a simple price tag-like system. Clients know exactly how much they are paying with these guys.
With everyone else, however, including most of those that call themselves “your adviser” the cost is hidden by the companies providing the investment products and the salesmen like it this way. Because if you knew just how much they were making you’d probably shit a brick.
So do you know which kind of “adviser” you’re working with?