A financial planner is a licensed person with a great deal of training and education in financial analysis, stock and bond markets, money markets and life planning. They are charged with producing a return on our assets while trying to minimize the risk of loss. No financial planner could have anticipated the impact of the recent mortgage lending failure, even though many expected an end. Given the large return available from the sub-prime mortgage market, it was difficult for a financial planner to compete without entering, in some way, sub-prime mortgage trading.