The short and simple answer is no, you don’t need an investment advisor. Given enough time and motivation, anyone should be able to learn the basics of investing on their own.
You could read up on index fund investing, create a basic 70/30 portfolio of low-fee stock and bond index funds like those through Vanguard, and you’d do better than the majority of investors with minimal effort.
The upside is that you don’t have to trust anyone but yourself with your money.
The downside is that unless you make the effort to educate yourself, you could make a mistake that costs you money.
And the more money you have to invest, the more you stand to risk with a poor investment decision.
So if you’ve got a substantial amount to invest, limited time or interest in learning about investing, but still want to preserve and ideally grow your capital, then chances are you’ll need to start looking for an advisor. In fact, if you have enough to invest investment advisors are already probably looking for you.
But then you’ve got another decision to make in choosing an advisor you can trust with your money. And here you also risk losing money if you don’t put some effort into choosing wisely.
Here are some tools to help research potential advisors: