To the editor:

I respectfully submit that in Aaron Couch’s article “Financial strategy: What now?” the comment that “… passively managed retirement funds beat funds carefully tended by financial planners” carelessly confuses the concept of financial planning with a well-known study about active vs. passive mutual fund management.

Financial planners and advisers work with individual investors to design a plan to help them achieve their goals. That plan might very well be fullfilled by the use of passive investments, but the planner’s primary value is in understanding the client and properly designing and maintaining a balanced portfolio of investments based on their particular objectives and risk tolerance –not in guessing which stock may be the next Apple.

Further, the suggestion that investors should “get free advice by spending a few hours on Google” seems inconsistent for a professional educator.