The Moneyist: She never explained anything: Im a senior citizen and I lost $100,000 in the stock market this year....

Dear Quentin,

I am a senior citizen and have suffered major losses to the tune of $100,000 in the recent stock market turmoil. Can I sue my financial adviser? I understand the dynamics of the market as far as its ups and downs, and have ridden them out before.

However, its been different with the market in this timeframe insofar as tech stocks are taking a major hit, as well as others. I advised my financial adviser I was heading into retirement months before all of this happened.

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As my account was taking losses, she did nothing to warn me that given the current situation it might be a good idea to move my assets to another area to lessen the losses and return at a later date when things have stabilized.

I now find out through other advisers Ive consulted with there is a term called stop loss to do just that, stop the loss. They also mentioned she did fail in her duties as an adviser. She never explained anything, like high- or low-risk management, or any other aspect of the market.

The only time we had contact was when I contacted her about buying into different stocks. Other than that, she never called about anything concerning my account at any time. Can I sue and, if so, how do I go about doing it?

Feeling Like a Sucker

Dear FLS,

There are a lot of hurdles you would need to clear in order to have a legal case to sue your financial adviser and, from what youve said here, it does not look like they have been met. Any investment has an element of risk and the S&P 500 SPX, -1.13%, Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.01% and Nasdaq COMP, -0.95% have suffered significant losses this year: down 19%, 16% and 27.8% respectively.