A recent article outlined investment themes to look for over the next decade and listed some growing trends in financial planning. It’s reassuring to see these trends. We’ve been working hard to innovate within this industry and find ways to help our clients. These trends are very similar to what we’ve been working on for the past two years:
Retirement Planning: We’ve focused our efforts on building Retirement Income Distribution Strategies that take into account all pots of money (savings & investments) and all sources of income (pensions, Social Security and annuities). Our planning factors in the slow, ever-present, erosion of purchasing power that occurs each and every year –inflation. In 20 years, the cost of living may double! Many clients don’t think about that when they retire, unless we illustrate it for them.
Low Cost Asset Management: Many firms have very high minimum fees, where the firm will only accept new clients with at least $500,000 or more in investable assets. Due to technology and automation these minimums are decreasing. We’ve always kept our minimums lower than average and are happy to see the trend finally start to shift in this direction. Ultimately, it will allow more investors to get more help than if they were to do it on their own. We often waive our minimums for referrals from existing clients.
RIA Advisory Services: The old model of charging upfront commissions on investments is disappearing. Client don’t like paying high sales charges and we don’t like being in the position of having to “sell” a fund. The alternative is to pay a small fee for advice and management on an ongoing basis. It opens up the investor to a much wider pool of investments without having to incur new sales charges, and it allows for greater flexibility.
In the end, these trends are great for the investor: More affordable investment advice, better planning tools, and less in the way of expenses are all going to benefit the investor.
If you’re interested in learning more about any of these themes and how they apply to you, please contact us.