Gaining Perspective

Last year, Commonwealth Financial introduced the Brand Studio to help advisors establish a name, logo and website – all the fundamentals to get marketing off the ground. Brand Studio provides advisors with resources and services in a centralized portal and serves as the engine for strategic advisor marketing support. My guest today, Sarah Howes, oversees that effort.

Family wealth transfers are complicated conversations. My guest, Jim Bertles of Tiedemann Advisors, has managed those conversations among his many UHNW clients and their millennial children. He has extensive experience overseeing and coordinating these transfers. Jim and I will discuss the dynamics of a successful family wealth transfer.  I will ask Jim about the questions he is encountering with beneficiaries and what insights advisors should be sharing with them. Jim believes that advisors should work towards creating strong relationships with these younger beneficiaries now, as they will need ongoing advice to update their plans as major life changes occur.

Roughly half of adults over the age 55 say their biggest financial fear is not having enough money saved for retirement. Add in inflation, market volatility and low interest rates, and that’s enough for any investor to have serious cause for concern. Those at or near retirement don’t have time on their side. Enter Constance. Last October, RetireOne, an independent distribution platform for fee-based life insurance products, introduced Constance - a zero-commission, flat-fee annuity built to enable financial advisors to integrate life insurance into client portfolios. With Constance, RIAs give their clients a lifetime income guarantee without cannibalizing their assets under management. By unbundling the insurance component from its underlying investments, advisors can wrap client brokerage accounts, IRAs, or Roth IRAs with lifetime income protection. My guests today are RetireOne’s president, Ed Mercier, and Dimensional Fund Advisors’ head of retirement distribution, Tim Kohn, on the show to discuss their recent announcement and the trends facing advisors who work with clients approaching or entering retirement.

ESG regulations and standards are proliferating across the globe. Along with that has been a surge in ESG investor appetite and fund launches.  That puts ESG at the center of dialogue among financial advisors.  It is increasingly likely that US policymakers will move to integrate ESG into its regulatory landscape in the near future, as Europe has already done.  My guest, Adrian Whelan, will discuss the key ESG themes, including how these are likely to influence US policymakers.  It is Adrian’s contention that ESG Is everywhere!

Amid the human tragedy brought on by the war in the Ukraine, there is a need to quickly and reliably expose assets aligned with Russia. But it’s hard to track the risks faced by big investors across diverse public and private assets that are multinational. Asset managers and regulators are turning to STP Investment Services, a Westchester, PA-based company and its BluePrint software platform that collects, processes, and presents constantly changing asset valuations for investments, from the investors who own them and from outside sources.

Investors continue to need a balanced portfolio, including fixed income. But the bond markets are challenging: Rates are low, duration risk is high, and runaway inflation is putting pressure on long-term rates. “Buy and hold” fixed-income strategies will not work as well as they have in the past. A better alternative is a tactical, disciplined approach to when and how to invest in fixed income.

One of the biggest challenges facing advisory firms is growing their human capital – hiring and retaining the best people. As in any service-oriented profession, there is no substitute for motivated, intelligent workers with a team-oriented attitude. Add to that the facts that the pandemic has expanded the need to communicate with clients in a remote work environment, and the job market has tightened with many more vacancies than workers seeking employment. My guest today will discuss how advisory firms are solving for that human capital challenge.

One of toughest challenges for advisors and their clients is the relentless downward pressure on interest rates. It has pressured savers to stretch for yield and take incremental risk for the safest portion of their portfolios.  Morgan Creek and Exos have a long history of providing innovation investment solutions to address the most pressing challenges in markets.  Taking advantage of structural arbitrage has long been a preferred method of earning consistent returns. Morgan Creek and Exos have collaborated to deliver an investment opportunity to capitalize on a unique structural arbitrage in the SPAC markets.  CSH is an investment vehicle engineered to provide all investors access to the types of arbitrage strategies normally restricted to accredited investors and qualified purchasers.

Racial equity is imperative to ensure change in a world that is becoming more diverse. We all can lead with kindness and empathy when it comes to learning about the differences of others. We can’t continue to have conversations about racial equity that are not followed by actions that do more than level the playing field. C-suite executives are adding more DEI professionals to their leadership teams to drive internal changes. Organizations are promising upward mobility for Black and brown people. But they still do not see much representation. My guest today is Dana Wilson, and her goal is to enhance the visibility of financial professionals of color and break down barriers for Black and brown consumers around the country who have established wealth for their families or are looking to build it.

With several rate hikes on the horizon, inflation weighs heavy on the minds of most investors. Yet, over two-thirds of individuals with debt are not planning to refinance or consolidate their debt in the next year. That presents a valuable financial planning opportunity for advisors. Half of Gen Zers and Millennials, those carrying the most student loan debt burden, are considering working with financial advisor this year according to a recent D.A. Davidson survey.  My guest today, Andrew Crowell, will outline how advisors can help investors capitalize on consolidation and refinancing opportunities ahead of rising rates, better understand the impact of inflation and rising rates, and set achievable financial goals.

manager, launched its first ETF, the Grayscale Future of Finance ETF (symbol: GFOF). It is built upon the thesis that the digital economy will boost global commerce, drive market efficiencies, and provide access to new pools of capital, while reducing the need for costly and cumbersome intermediaries. GFOF is the first equity ETF to track the investment performance of the Bloomberg Grayscale Future of Finance Index, which comprises companies representing three “future of finance” pillars: financial foundations, technology solutions, and digital asset infrastructure.

The fixed income markets have changed dramatically since the global financial crisis, providing the opportunity for disciplined investment managers to add alpha. My guest will discuss ways to navigate the changing fixed income markets, including the difficulty in consistently calling interest rate moves, how conditions in the credit markets have dramatically changed, and how his firm manages fixed income.

As we head into 2022, the two major fears clients face are inflation and rising interest rates. Multiple rate hikes are already priced in, which will be a challenge for once high-flying growth stocks. This is the time to consider value stocks – which have been outperforming growth stocks over the past six months. But how can advisors make sure they are making the right move to value stocks? My guest today will explain why investing in companies with high-free-cash flow is particularly attractive.

Diversity among financial planners improved in 2021, but the profession still has work to do to ensure all investors have the tools and resources they need to achieve successful financial outcomes for their clients. In this episode, James Seth Thompson will discuss his role in promoting financial literacy and expanding opportunities for diverse investors through his recruitment efforts at Bernstein.

Podcasting is the most intimate medium for communicating and building a relationship with clients and prospects on their time – through opt-in marketing. My guest today, Matt Halloran, has founded the only podcasting company that has compliance completely figured out. It specializes in helping advisors and professionals in highly regulated industries to start a podcast that turns skeptics into pre-sold fans

A recent study by Hartford Funds revealed that more than half of respondents believe that men and women have different financial needs. But only 24% said they want to work with a financial professional who caters to the needs of their gender. It is clear that investors simply want to be treated as individuals. To provide sound financial advice, it’s imperative that advisors avoid making generalizations based on age or gender. Instead, they must help clients plan for life’s circumstances by asking thoughtful questions. My guest today will explain why this enhanced focus on lifestyle goals and personalization will be the key to attracting the next generation of clients.

Financial advisors are increasingly abandoning the 60/40 portfolio for higher allocations to alternative investing strategies. They have found that alternatives enhance returns, diversify risk, and supplement income. In this episode, we will discuss the trends shaping the future of wealth management and driving growth of alternative product usage, including regulatory easing, product innovation, and the changes in advisor behavior brought on by the pandemic.

Inflation, as measured by the CPI, is at muti-decades highs. The last time the U.S. experience inflation at current levels was in the early 1980s. That was coming off the energy crisis of the 1970s, when CPI climbed over 14% and interest rates on the 10-year U.S. Treasury were pushing 16%. My guest is here to examine U.S. inflationary periods from 1965 through the current episode, the relationship between inflation and interest rates, and what to expect from this inflationary period.

The William Blair Large Cap Growth fund (LCGFX) has been one of the top performing funds in its class, returning 20.72% over the last decade, which puts it in the top 8th percentile of its Morningstar large-growth peer group. The fund focuses on growing companies in growing industries—what they call structurally advantaged companies—whose long-term growth is underappreciated by the market.

Last month, Amplify ETFs expanded its suite of BlackSwan ETFs with the launch of the Amplify BlackSwan Tech & Treasury ETF (NYSE Arca: QSWN). QSWN is an index-based ETF that seeks to hedge against significant losses while still participating in technology & growth equities, without an artificial cap.

 QSWN is Amplify’s third BlackSwan ETF. The other BlackSwan ETFs, SWAN and ISWN, have together amassed close to $1 billion in assets. Launched in 2018, SWAN has shown to be an attractive risk-managed investment in the marketplace. ISWN is approaching its one-year anniversary and provides access to international equities.