That simply is not true.

If people want an advisor to actively manage a stock portfolio with trading at least quarterly then a fee-based account is what they need. I used to run mine at 1% or discount it depending on the client. If a person wants to buy and hold stocks then the fee based account will hurt more in the long run. So, paying a commission at the beginning is better. I had many individuals and also corporate accounts that this favored because they were buying and holding for the dividends (tax free for corps). I also had client accounts that would have benefitted from fee-based but because they directed their own accounts I wouldnt "put my name" on it as to charge a fee for my services, so they had to pay more to direct their own trades. This is mai ly because a fee-based financial consultant has a higher fiduciary responibility to the client accounts.

Now, under the obama admin they changed the feduciary rules and it spooked a bunch of the financial firms into going one way or the other. Fee based or commission based. It had to do with companies holding the 12b-1 fees that were paid out to the brokers/agents annually. I think it made a mess of things because people hold different monies for different reasons. This in the long run made the clients pay more(just like every damn thing obama did).