Ask Matt: Should I fire my financial adviser?

— -- Q: Our financial adviser always explains away our opinions on the stock market and discourages us from doing what we want to do: selling. Should we fire him?

A: If you hire someone to do something for you, there's the risk that an element of distrust can creep into the relationship. When you hand your key to a valet, for instance, you might wonder if the 18-year-old is going to take your wheels for a joyride.

Trusting people to do you right is part of delegation. But there's a big difference between worrying about your car while you eat dinner for an hour and your retirement nest egg you'll need for 20 or more years in retirement. Decisions made with your money will dramatically influence how you live in your golden years.

If you don't think your adviser is listening to you, that could signal a problem. Some advisers may just want to keep the clients moving along, dispensing cookie-cutter adviser advice and just collecting their fees. If you think your adviser is just too busy to be bothered with your concerns, then yes, you might start looking for someone who might give you more time.

However, with that said, one of the biggest services a financial adviser can do is to protect you from your own fears. Bad financial decisions are often made when investors are emotional and allow recent events to steer their thinking from their long-term goals.

Ask Matt readers will routinely e-mail me when the market is at its bottom asking if they should bail out and sell. Almost always, these notes of concern start pouring in as the stock market is hitting its lows. More often than not, when investors allow such intense fear to cause them to sell in panic, they not only give up years of market gains but ultimately miss out on the subsequent rallies that can generate huge amounts of wealth in a short period of time.

If your adviser has crafted a prudent portfolio that properly balances your appetite for risk and your financial needs, perhaps he's doing you a favor to help you stay on course. Changing your financial plan when there's a short-term change in the markets rarely makes sense. Sometimes doing nothing is the best course of action. Perhaps the adviser is saving you from your own fears.

But with that said, the fact you're having such concerns might indicate that your portfolio is not appropriate for you. If you feel as if your portfolio's volatility is more than you can handle, you might consider explaining to your adviser that the ups and downs are causing you too much emotional distress. That might be a good way to start talking about dialing back the risk of your portfolio.

Just keep in mind, though, that if you reduce the risk of your portfolio you'll need to prepare to accept a lower return, too. Your adviser should be able to help you figure out if the lower returns of your less-risky portfolio will be adequate to help you meet your financial goals.

Matt Krantz is a financial markets reporter at USA TODAY and author of Investing Online for Dummies and Fundamental Analysis for Dummies. He answers a different reader question every weekday in his Ask Matt column at money.usatoday.com. To submit a question, e-mail Matt at mkrantz@usatoday.com. Follow Matt on Twitter at: twitter.com/mattkrantz