Advice from the "Miracle on Ice" goalie (Investment News)
Jim Craig, the goaltender for the United States' 1980 "Miracle on Ice" hockey team, gave opening remarks at the Financial Planning Association Business and Education meeting on Saturday. Craig told advisors they shouldn't be afraid to learn new things to help their clients' dreams come true. Scott Rojas, a financial adviser at Eclectic Associates, told Investment News his take away from Craig's speech was that you must be willing to take a chance and lose in order to be successful.
Alcoa is splitting in two (Business Insider)
The aluminum giant is dividing itself into an Upstream company and a Value-Add company. The Upstream company will be responsible for pulling the element out of the ground, while the Value-Add company will focus on creating usable products. "In the last few years, we have successfully transformed Alcoa to create two strong value engines that are now ready to pursue their own distinctive strategic directions," CEO Klaus Kleinfeld said.
Trump reveals his tax plan (Business Insider)
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump unveiled his tax plan during a Monday press conference at Trump Tower. According to Trump, anyone making $25,000 or less ($50,000 jointly) would pay no taxes and instead file a single form saying, "I win." The plan also calls for reducing taxes to 0%, 10%, 20% and 25% for the highest earners while also vowing to eliminate the "carried interest" loophole.
A look at advisor pay (Financial Planning)
The 2015 FA Insight Study of Advisory Firms: People and Pay is out. According to Financial Planning the results show, lead advisors have seen pay rise at a compounded annual growth rate of 2.6% between 2009 and 2015. Median pay for lead advisors is now just shy of $200,000 per year. Associate advisors have been a little less fortunate. The report, obtained by Financial Planning, says the average associate advisor makes about $80,000 per year and has seen a 2% compounded annual growth rate over the past seven years. Chief Operating Officers have seen their median pay grow at 7% annually since 2009, more than doubling lead advisor pay growth. Finally, officer managers have seen an annual boost of 3.9% to about $60,000 per year, the data shows.
Active management is useful during periods of volatility (Financial Advisor)
The debate over passive and active management is unlikely to be settled anytime soon. However, two money managers told Financial Advisor active management can be useful, especially during periods of heightened volatility. Ed Keon, managing director and portfolio manager at QMA, told Financial Advisor his firm is shedding risk by rebalancing into a neutral portfolio after using a 60% stocks/40% bonds split. Meanwhile, Brian Aherns, executive vice president and director of the Strategic Investment Research Group at Prudential, says bonds look attractive at these levels after the Fed kept its benchmark rate on the zero bound in September. "We are using indexes or structured equity products to build a portfolio now, and then we will use active managers around that whether it is a bull or bear market," Aherns told Financial Advisor.