The role played by investment advisors has gained significant attention and increased importance in recent times. Certain factors like rapidly changing conditions of financial markets and the availability of a wide variety of investment options have made the presence of a well-informed, knowledgeable, and sound investment advisor more necessary than ever.

As you begin to seek out the right financial advisor for yourself, it is imperative to have a proper understanding of the areas where you are planning to seek help. You would then be in a better position to examine your potential investment advisor before you hire him and determine exactly how skilled he is in the areas where you seek assistance.

Is your investment advisor well-qualified? This is one of the most crucial considerations while searching for a reliable advisor. Financial advisors should hold the prerequisite qualifications. Try to find out if your agent holds the mandatory credentials or not. It is one of the basic investing lessons you need to keep in mind. Because acting on the advice offered by an individual who does not have the requisite knowledge could spell disaster for your investments.

Be it any sector of investment, healthcare stock, real estate property, and others, your investment advisor should ideally put your interests before his. His suggestions and investment advice should be customized to your needs, objectives, and risk appetite.

Ever wonder why most investors fail to beat the markets?

There are many reasons, but one of the biggest is the information they act on is just so very, very wrong.

Take a look at this report from the Associated Press a few days ago.

Note the editor’s horribly misguided judgment and presentation of history in Budget Deficit Tops $1 trillion for First Time:

History shows the dangers of assuming too soon that economic downturns have ended.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt made that mistake in 1936. Believing the Depression largely over, he sought to reduce public spending and to balance the federal budget, but that undermined a fragile recovery, pushing the economy back under water in 1937.

Japanese leaders made a similar mistake in the 1990s when they temporarily withdrew government stimulus spending, prolonging Japan's recession into one that lasted a full decade.

This is clearly the work of a journalism student “reporting” on economic news.

There are just so many things wrong here.

First off, stimulus is not good for anything but enriching the direct benefactors of the legislation. It does nothing to help the economy adjust (i.e. many real estate agents will need to find new employment in a new field). Economies readjust naturally – stimulus only delays the process.

Secondly, the 1936 “fragile recovery” (the second attempted recovery from the Great Depression) was halted due to excessive government spending.

Finally, Japan did not make a “mistake” in the early 1990’s by withdrawing stimulus spending. There may have been a few cutbacks from planned stimulus, but Japan spent more than $6 trillion on stimulus throughout it’s “lost decade.”

Japan spent more than 100% of its GDP on infrastructure, bailing out banks, and tax cuts as well as slashing interest rates too in order to “stimulate” its economy. But by this author’s rationale, it made a “mistake” in that it didn’t stimulate enough.

Under this rationale, the U.S. should spend at least another $13 trillion on stimulus…laughable.

The real danger here is editorial like this passed off as news – or worse, fact. This happens all the time in media. There’s nothing really wrong with it, but for readers of this economic news story would be big believers the government spending right now is a good thing. And investors who fall into that trap will pay dearly.

As we like to say in the Prosperity Dispatch, our 100% free investment e-newsletter, some investors are doomed to fail and others look through the noise and the obvious to find the real investment opportunities.

The fix is in.

This government fix, in typical government fashion, is downright laughable…as long as you don’t live in Michigan.

Last week the economic masterminds in Michigan’s state legislature had a great idea. They thought, we’ll just legislate prosperity.

Their solution to the tough times in Michigan:

A $10 minimum wage in Michigan is the centerpiece of a number of populist proposals unveiled Wednesday by the Democratic Party, which hopes to get some of the initiatives on next year's ballot.

Besides the 35 percent hike in the minimum wage, party officials want to mandate employer health coverage for all workers, boost unemployment benefits, slash utility rates and freeze home foreclosures.

I’m at a loss for words - almost.

This is an idea we posed in the Prosperity Dispatch, our free investment newsletter, that it would be easy to mandate prosperity via government fiat rather than hard work and government getting out of the way and let people do things for themselves.

We surmised:

There’s no relief in sight for the unemployment situation. And I’m sure today’s minimum wage increase won’t help at all. Sure, the government will argue this will increase spending because minimum wage workers will have more income. But if that were true, why not raise the minimum wage to $50 an hour and end the recession once and for all?

Doesn’t make any sense does it?

Well, it doesn’t for the rational person. But we’re dealing with legislators, not rationale people. And their irrational solution is to increase the minimum wage which will be ok for some, but will drive more and more jobs away from a state on the verge of collapse already.

Then to throw a little more fuel on the fire they’re going to outlaw foreclosures, force employers to spend money on healthcare coverage, and charge employers more for laying someone off (that’s who really pays the unemployment benefits).

It’s no wonder why 2,000 people are leaving Michigan behind every week.

On the good side, Michigan may be the “close-to-home” proof socialism doesn’t work.

The auto bailout saga is getting downright laughable.

The total tab so far for the automaker bailout now sits at $110 billion (including subsidies, direct cash infusions, and everything else).

With cash in hand, the company with the farthest outstretched hand is now getting its act together – or so they say.

The Associated Press reports GM to go green, cut execs, as it exits bankruptcy:

People briefed on [GM’s] plans say the company is looking into changing the background color of its corporate logo from blue to green in an effort to show consumers that it is leaner and greener, more focused on fuel efficiency and better able to make quick decisions.

Ed Welburn, GM's vice president of design, is leading a group that is studying name and logo changes, but no recommendation has been made, according to one of the people. Changing the background of the familiar square blue-and-white GM logo has been discussed, said the people, who requested anonymity because no decision has been reached.

Hmmm…it takes a “group” to study changing the background of GM’s logo from blue to green?

Don’t worry, the company’s largest shareholder is going to put a stop to this.

Henderson, under pressure from the new GM's largest shareholder, the U.S. government, wants a more nimble company, one that can make decisions faster and is less bureaucratic than the GM of the past.

Looks like they’re really changing the culture which destroyed the company in the first place.

And this is just further proof, aside from the natural market forces which will send GM back into bankruptcy within two years, our “investment” in GM is going to probably be worse than you think.

But there is some upside here. While the government is involved and these private quasi-private sector bureaucrats are still running the show, almost nothing will get accomplished.

One of the few things that will actually get done is a lot of money spent on building and selling hybrid and plug-in electric cars. That’s where we see the biggest, government-mandated investment opportunity in this boondoggle. And it’s something we’ll continue to track in the Prosperity Dispatch, our 100% free investment e-newsletter.

While the policy makers debate whether the U.S. should have a nationalized, socialized, personal-responsibility based healthcare system, Big Pharma is moving on to the profit opportunities.

In this case, it’s one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies going after one of the biggest investment opportunities of the next few years.

Earlier today Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) announced a $1 billion deal with Elan (ELN:NYSE) to fund the development of its Alzheimer’s disease treatment.

The Associated Press sums the deal up in Johnson & Johnson pays $1 billion for Elan stake:

Johnson & Johnson, making a big jump into the risky but potentially lucrative field of Alzheimer's disease, is taking a major stake in Irish biopharmaceutical company Elan Corp., investing up to $1.5 billion initially.

The two will cooperate to complete research on two injected drugs to stop progression of the mind-robbing disease and on a vaccine to prevent the buildup of plaque in the brain that causes increasing memory loss, confusion, wandering and aggression.

[Break]

New Brunswick, N.J.-based J&J, the world's biggest healthcare company with nearly $64 billion in 2008 sales, can pour far more money than Dublin-based Elan into the research, he said. J&J sells one Alzheimer's drug, Razadyne, with sales of just $541 million last year, but company executives last month said Alzheimer's disease is now a priority.

[Break]

"J&J needed to do this," [Dale Schenk, Elan's chief scientific officer], given the pressures on the industry from generic competition, not enough drugs being developed in-house, healthcare reform and the recession.

Although the mainstream media passed over the news with only moderate fanfare (the economy and what the president and Congress are “doing” about is the main focus), this deal proves the immense potential in the Alzheimer’s disease prevention and treatment market.

To date there is still not a single end-all/be-all drug which is a true blockbuster. So much investment opportunity exists here still.

We’ve tracked the investment potential in the Prosperity Dispatch for quite some time and our exclusive interview with one of the world’s leading Alzheimer’s disease experts and find it one of the best places to start for looking for the sure-to-be lucrative Alzheimer’s disease investments.