Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition starts off with a look at how fiduciary rulemaking progress has slowed so much that any real change may now be years away at best, a discussion of how (despite lack of progress on fiduciary minimum standards) the future of advice may include a small number of mega-firms that are really building a focused, holistic and client-centric approach to advice, and a somewhat disturbing article suggesting that financial planners are becoming a target for cybercrooks that are trying to steal client money by sending advisors fake email transfer requests. From there, we have a few interesting retirement articles, including an interview with Moshe Milevsky, a discussion from Wade Pfau looking at the immediate-annuity-versus-systematic-withdrawal debate, and an analysis of median income for households over the past several decades that shows how retirees are actually faring the best of any age group. We also look at an interesting Journal of Financial Planning article about how to better evaluate cash value life insurance illustrations, a discussion whether it really pays to go to cash waiting for interest rates to rise, and a look from Morningstar at how as more and more people adopt indexing approaches new opportunities may be emerging for active managers. We wrap up with two lighter articles, one with tips on how to get more productivity time back with some good email management tips, and an intriguing discussion of how, in light of the fact that even people who now do what they love often found that path only after a period of time and some difficult early years, "follow your passion" may be bad career advice for Generation Y and that instead we need to paint a more nuanced picture of career paths that acknowledge the (inevitably?) difficult early years. Enjoy the reading!
The most typical definition of an asset class is a group of securities that have similar risk/return characteristics, and behave similarly in the marketplace. Thus, for instance, stocks, bonds, and cash represent the three most common asset classes, as each have different risk/return characteristics and they behave very differently in response to various economic and market events.
One of the most common ways to attempt to determine whether an investment represents a unique asset class is to examine its correlation with other investments. After all, two investments that have different risk/return characteristics and behave differently in response to market events would likely show little similarity in returns over time, thereby exhibiting a low correlation. In turn, given how Modern Portfolio Theory demonstrates that investments with a low correlation to the rest of the portfolio can lower the overall volatility of the portfolio - even if the underlying investment itself is volatile on its own - advisors have increasingly sought out low correlation "alternative" asset classes and investments to manage risk through diversification.
The caveat, however, is that in an increasingly complex financial world, having a low correlation alone can actually be a remarkably poor and misleading indicator of what constitutes an (alternative) asset class.
It was August 24th. I had just awakened early in the morning in Sydney, my final day there after serving as a keynote speaker for the Australia Portfolio Construction Forum, and I was looking through my morning email – which was actually the prior afternoon’s August 23rd email at home in Washington DC, given the 14-hour time zone difference. Earlier in the week, I had caught the surprise announcement from the FPA that CEO Marv Tuttle was stepping down, to be succeeded by then-current FPA COO and Associate Executive Director Lauren Schadle, and read with interest Schadle’s comments that FPA would be stepping up its focus on those financial planners who are serious enough about their craft to seek out the CFP certification.
What caught my eye that morning, however, was an unexpected response to Schadle’s comments from American College President and CEO Dr. Larry Barton. The College, through which I have proudly earned 6 professional designations, including the CFP itself, is one into which I had invested a lot of time, money, and effort, both during my studies, and in the years thereafter as I have continued to promote its advanced educational programs and even recently taken part in providing content for their latest RICP designation.
Yet after reading Barton’s response, I felt for the first time a true embarrassment in being an alumni of the American College of Financial Services, and shame in being a holder of what was once its defining credential, the CLU designation.
Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition starts off with a tough look at the CFP Board's fiduciary standard, raising the question of whether fiduciary is just an advertising gimmick or whether it's really being enforced as such, along with another recent study that finds the majority of investment assets in the country are being managed by firms with questionable and conflicted business models, or an outright series of regulatory infractions. From there, we look at a few more upbeat industry articles, including two recent studies on planner compensation, one showing that income for senior planners is up 14% in the past two years, and another finding that all else being equal CFP certificants average $5,000/year in additional compensation over non-CFPs. There's also a discussion of how some firms are developing new training programs to bring more young people into financial planning, and a look at the firm LearnVest which had a "Best In Show" appearance at this week's Finovate conference with a new iPad app for clients and an announcement of SEC registration as the firm aims to bring financial planning to "the other 99%" of Americans. We also look at two marketing articles, one on how financial advisory firm aggregator HighTower is using social media on a larger firm scale, and an interesting discussion of whether local radio shows still have some marketing value, along with a review of the latest MoneyGuide Pro G3 release. We wrap up with a nice list of market and economic commentaries to check out if you're looking for good content to stay educated, an interesting discussion about whether we are sometimes too conservative in our recommendations as planners and the impact that can have on clients, and an article about whether the social media revolution is about to get "a little less awesome" as investors put increasing pressure on social media firms to shift from the "making delightful and cheap things" stage to the "making money" stage. Enjoy the reading!
As regulatory reform for financial services moves along slowly here in the US, half way around the world in Australia a new set of regulatory reforms entitled the "Future of Financial Advice" are now being implemented. The changes will include a ban on all investment commissions, and a fiduciary duty for those giving financial advice, not unlike similar reforms scheduled in the UK under their Retail Distribution Review (RDR) set to take effect in 2013. Notably, though, while Australian reforms may have leapfrogged past the US, the Australian marketplace looks more like the US did nearly 20 years ago, as approximately 80% of advisors work under a small number of dealer groups and there are almost no independent firms. With Australian firms required to adopt fee-only models, including AUM, retainer, and hourly, within a year, the evolution of business models in the US may provide a glimpse to what is coming for Australia. Yet while the US offers Australia a glimpse of fee-only business models, Australia may provide US a first glimpse at how financial services shifts in a fiduciary, fee-only environment - providing a live, real world environment to evaluate questions like whether the less affluent marketplace really is served effectively without commissions, and whether there's still a place for broker-dealers in a fiduciary world.Read More...
As professionals, we take financial planning very seriously, and generally hope that our clients do as well. After all, if clients don't take their financial situation and its outcomes seriously, how will they ever change their behavior for the better? However, the reality is that in many fields, some of the best progress in helping people change their behavior comes not from raising the seriousness and penalties for making mistakes, but for turning the subject into a gaming experience that rewards positive outcomes. In the context of financial planning, this process of "gamification" creates the potential to help clients making the changes they need to achieve financial success. Although some aspects of financial planning would be difficult to turn into the kind of instantaneous feedback necessary for gamification to work - at least until technology moves along a few more years - other parts can be implemented now. For instance, even just making a financial planning action items list continuously available to clients, with checkboxes left blank until the task is completed, can help compel clients to finish what they need to in order to get to check the box! Will gamification have the potential to help clients having difficulty with change get to the financial planning outcomes they need and want?Read More...
