It's a good time to have money in the stock market. But that doesn't mean investors can run about willy-nilly, according to the leader of a prominent financial analysts' group.

Jeffrey J. Diermeier, president and chief executive officer of the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute, said that the bedrock principles about investing — and choosing someone to manage those investments — remain critical in a high-flying market. The Dow Jones Industrials Average celebrated its fifth straight gain and its third consecutive record close Thursday, at 12,305.82.

Diermeier, whose institute is based in Charlottesville, Va., was in Salt Lake City on Thursday to meet with local and prospective CFA Institute members and university students. The CFA Institute has more than 88,000 members in 130 countries. The local chapter has about 140 members, according to Salt Lake Society president Eric Stats.

"This gives us a great opportunity to talk to students about what the profession is like, why it's important to have a strong ethical base, and why, despite the fact that you see all this talk about money — billions and billions of dollars — the fact of the matter is that it is a profession where trust is the most common basis for a good relationship. People have to try to get the dollar signs out of their eyes and think more fundamentally about whether they can provide good services."

Smart investors have a plan, Diermeier said. They have evaluated their needs, present and future, and determined how much they'll need to save to meet those needs. And then they update that plan regularly.

Smart investors carefully control their expenses, which means not only that they know how much they're spending, but also exactly where their money is going and when they're being subjected to unnecessary or excessive fees, he said.

Smart investors diversify their portfolios, based on their needs and risk tolerance. And smart investors choose a financial analyst they can trust.

"As we trade securities, all of the trading happens essentially with a handshake," said Laurence R. Stay, vice president of Ensign Peak Advisors Inc., and a CFA charter holder. "There's lots of protections around it, but billions of dollars change hands every day just based on the ethics of the group — that people know that they can trust each other."

And in a state like Utah, where fraud is on the rise, particularly among the elderly, it's all the more important to know with whom you're doing business, Stay said. CFA members annually sign a statement of ethics.

"We (at the CFA Institute) try to educate people about what reasonable investments are," he said. "We try to make available as much investor information as possible so that the members of our community won't be abused by those who are in it just for the money.

"Part of our ethics is that we have to look at the people we deal with in a fiduciary way — we have to look out for their best interests, not for our own interests. If you're doing that, then you steer away from the wild, harebrained schemes and the outright fraud that is so common in this community."