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Client Experience
The Search for an Advisor Like Me
This piece is approved to use with clients.
Analysts have been investigating the business case for diversity across industries for years and it has grown stronger. The Wall Street Journal’s research suggests that diverse and inclusive cultures may provide “companies with a competitive edge over their peers.” Companies participating in the study credited maintaining diversity with a range of benefits, including talent retention and better innovation and product development.
Human Capital
Diversity is Good Business for Advisory Firms
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U.S. demographics are changing and we are expected to be a minority/majority by 2045. Yet the majority of financial advisors are still overwhelmingly white, male and shrinking in numbers. FlexShares conducted a survey of investors and advisors to see if diversity was being pursued and how firms were building diverse teams.
Human Capital
The Inherent Value of Diversity
This piece is approved to use with clients.
The client of the future doesn’t look, or act, like the client of the past, or in many aspects, the client of today. As people of all identities -- race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientations, family status, and more -- overcome historical barriers to access economic opportunities, financial advisors aiming to stay competitive may want to find ways to help a broader range of clients build wealth.
Client Experience
Advisory Firm Back to Office Checklist
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As states begin to lift their stay-at-home orders many advisors are looking forward to getting their teams back into the office. This checklist will help you get organized.
Client Experience
Back to Work Considerations for Advisory Firms
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As states begin to lift restrictions surrounding COVID-19, advisory firms are faced with a daunting question – what does the return to work look like? Now that we’ve mastered the art of working from home, how do we approach the next major hurdle of going back? While the future remains uncertain, it’s important to begin these discussions and start putting an office resiliency plan in place.
Market Outlooks
What small caps might be telling us about the economy and the market
For a big country, we sure have an affinity for little things. Think TV shows: “Tiny House Nation”; sayings: “Big things come in small packages”; and children’s books: “The Little Engine That Could” as being among the more obvious examples of our love of things little or small. It is a love of small things which brings us to the focus of this week’s Weekly Wire, US small cap stocks, and what the asset class might be telling us about the US economy and the US stock market as we approach the second half of 2020.
Market Outlooks
What history will COVID-19 write?
The COVID-19 pandemic has made history in more ways than one, including catalyzing an economic downturn that cost the US more than 20 million jobs and a policy response that saw the Federal Government pass the $2.1 trillion CARES Act, the largest ever US economic rescue package. That said, we don’t think COVID-19 is finished filling up our history books. We think the long-term consequences of the virus could prove much more meaningful than what we have seen to date.
Behavioral Finance
Focused expertise
There have been many restrictions placed on the normal rhythms of life in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The interactions we typically take for granted such as going to restaurants, spending time with friends, working out at the gym, and traveling on vacation have all been curtailed in an effort to tame the pandemic.
Market Outlooks
The market as a leading indicator…for the market
We frequently write about the stock market as a leading indicator of the real economy. The idea being
the market will anticipate the economic environment to come, rallying in the face of awful economic news and selling off in the face of constructive economic news.
Client Relationships
Positioning yourself as a behavioral coach
While there is plenty of economic upside to the specialization required of modern life, one downside is that hyper-specialization can lead to siloed thinking. For a psychologist like me, the hammer that I have (an understanding of the power of behavior) can lead me to see behavioral “nails” everywhere, even in places where they may not truly exist.
Policy and Regulatory Commentary
How the Federal Reserve is like Spike from Happy Days
As a child of the 70s, I have come to embrace a few, eternal truths: disco should have never died; big collars were a good idea, and the Fonz was the coolest guy who ever lived. Speaking of the Fonz, I am reminded of a Happy Days episode featuring Spike, the Fonz’s nephew, and how that episode and Spike can help us all better understand monetary policy today. Seriously.
Fixed Income Insights
Weekly Wire: It’s always darkest before the dawn
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It is one thing to understand we are living through an unprecedented, pandemic driven economic downturn, and all together another to learn the US unemployment rate is 14.7% and that 20.5 million of our fellow Americans lost their jobs in April.