I am a professional in the financial industry and I can tell you that "most of the times", the return from the index fund or ETFs would be better than the asset allocation by the so called "financial advisors". You can actually get tons of information from WSJ, CNBC, Yahoo FN. And if you have the FA, leverage their resource but don't just let them decide for you. Be your final decision maker on your own portfolio. Then if you are savvy enough, 9 of 10 you'll beat the FA in performance.