Advisors Need To Do These Three Things To Attract Female Clients
Three Things Advisors Need To Do To Attract More Female Clients (Vanguard)
A Boston Consulting Group survey found that women would control $30 trillion of the world's wealth by 2014. Advisors not making an effort to involve women in the investment process are missing out. Michael Liersch, head of behavioral finance for Merrill Lynch, tells Vanguard that there are three things advisors looking to attract female clients need to do.
1. Advisors should let the client know that irrespective of how much or little investing experience she has, they want her involved in the process.
2. They should ask "critical questions in a structured way to get the client's thoughts and feelings about investing."
3. Advisors need to be "open and empathetic to the circumstances that that individual may have been going through up until this point."
Portfolio Management Was The Top Issue Among Advisors In Q1 (Fidelity Financial Advisor Solutions)
The Fidelity Advisor Investment Pulse survey highlighted top issues among advisors in Q1 2014. 1. Portfolio management and investment allocation; 2. Fixed income; 3. Rising market volatility, downside risk and avoiding a meltdown; 4. Interest rates; 5. Finding yield or generating income.
"In the first quarter of 2014, many financial advisors and their clients were thinking about what to do with their portfolios if interest rates rise," said Scott E. Couto, president, Fidelity Financial Advisor Solutions. "Interestingly, they have been less focused on what many consider the 'flip side' of rising rates: inflation. Fidelity offers a range of insights that can help advisors navigate through a new era in portfolio management -- both focusing on the near- and long-term environment."
The Entire Debate Over Record-High Profit Margins Has Pivoted (Business Insider)
Stock market bears argue that profit margins are high and unsustainable. They expect margins to contract and this to cause stock prices to fall. Deutsche Bank's David Bianco and Philosophical Economics' Jesse Livermore have argued that this level is however sustainable. But Livermore and Bianco have now changed the direction of the debate by arguing that we should be looking at profits relative to capital and not profit margins.
"The mistake we're making here is to assume that corporations "compete" for profit margins," wrote Livermore on Sunday. "They don't. Profit margins have no value at all. What has value is a return. The decision to expand into the market of a competitor and seek additional return is not a decision driven by the expected profit margin, the expected return relative to the anticipated quantity of sales. Rather, it's a decision driven instead by the expected ROE, the expected return relative to the amount of capital that will have to be invested, put at risk, in order to earn it."
The number of Americans filing for bankruptcy climbed during the financial crisis, in instances where one couple lost their job or because of overwhelming medical bills. But explaining a bankruptcy to a client can be difficult.
"I'm a big fan of transparency, especially in this day and age," Jay Fleischman bankruptcy attorney at Shaev Fleischman told Liz Skinner at Investment News. "So many people have been through the ringer financially that bankruptcy doesn't have the same stigma that it did a decade ago." Bankruptcy attorney Mark Buckley advises clients to file for bankruptcy as a last resort and try instead to downsize their home or move their children to a public school.
Here's Why Saving For College Is Not Enough (JP Morgan Funds)
69% of money set aside for a college education is held in cash accounts because parents and grandparents have been distrustful of the financial market. But the interest on cash can't keep pace with tuition inflation, according to JP Morgan Funds. "In rolling 18-year periods since the late 1970s, cash has not kept pace with the average tuition increase," according to JP Morgan Funds. "A diversified 50-50 10% portfolio of stocks and bonds offers higher 8% returns than cash, and gives the investor the opportunity to achieve returns high enough to pay for Junior's education."