Don't open a discretionary a/c.Your agent who is paid by commission will keep buying/selling your shares against your interest so as to earn commission.Ben Graham,Warren Buffett's professor and author of The Intelligent Investor.....said,never ask a baber whether you need a haircut.In case you do,your barber will definately keep cutting your hair....even when you don't need a haircut.Pick stocks yourself or buy into a unit trust......

Ali Baba

@ Manja
Discretionary accounts as AB stated below more often than not serves the agent,they use that account to settle orders that wouldnt be found elsewhere e.g. if i place a buy order for safcom at 2.50 chances are that no one will be willing to sell me that share at that price,but if the agent has a discretionary account that has safcom in it,they would sell it to me at the ask price. something similar happened to someone i know and he ended up losing 1.9 million in a span of 9 months. every freaking order that wasnt attractive enough for any of the other investors in the agent's portfolio was settled through this guy's account.

Its just me
whatever choice you make in life make sure that you can live with it.