Are Your Financial Advisor’s Fees Reasonable? A Unique Perspective – Retirees

14 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by wmosconi in asset allocation, Consumer Finance, Education, financial advice, Financial Advisor, financial advisor fees, financial advisory fees, financial goals, financial markets, financial planning, financial services industry, gross returns, Individual Investing, individual investors, investing, investing advice, investing information, investing tips, investment advice, investment advisory fees, investments, personal finance, portfolio, reasonable fees, reasonable fees for financial advisor, reasonable fees for investment advice, reasonable financial advisor fees, Stock Market Returns

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I started off this examination with a brief introduction to this question. You can see that discussion by clicking on the following link:

https://latticeworkwealth.com/2020/01/13/are-your-financial-advisor-fees-reasonable-introduction/

As promised, I will start by using retirees as the individual investors. The hypothetical example is meant to get you thinking about the reasonableness of investing fees and how they affect you reaching your financial goals. Of course, I will discuss the same topic but using those individual investors who are saving for retirement. But now, let’s dive into our discussion of this topic by focusing on those individual investors already in retirement.

Example for Retirees:

If you are retired and not independently wealthy, you are in the wealth distribution phase of your life. There are some retirees that are permanently in the wealth preservation phase. Wealth preservation simply means that an investor has enough money to live comfortably, but he/she does not need to deplete his/her investment portfolio. Furthermore, this investor does not really try to increase the value of his or her investment portfolio. A retiree in the wealth distribution phase of life is the most common example. This investor is gradually depleting his/her investment portfolio to pay for living expenses on an annual basis.

Since this person is not working anymore, (thus has no income from work, and longevity keeps getting longer), he/she needs have an investment portfolio that is somewhat conservative in nature. Therefore, it is not reasonable to expect to earn 8.0% per year. A more common target return might be 5.5-6.0%. If you are working with a financial professional who charges you 1.0%, you need to earn 6.5-7.0% on a gross basis in order to get to that target net return. Now the long-term historical average of stocks is about 9.5%, so the higher your AUM fees are, the more weighting you will need to have in stocks and away from bonds and cash. Well, we have already gone over that, and most individuals that present information will stop there. I want to take this even further though.

Let’s say you are a current retiree with $1 million that you are living on an additional to Social Security income. You have a target return of 5.5% to fund your desired retirement lifestyle, and your Financial Advisor charges you a 1.0% AUM fee. Thus, you will need to earn a 6.5% return gross to reach your bogey. Now I would like to put in the twist, and I want to do a thought experiment with you. Your Financial Advisor will sit down with you and assess your risk tolerance and ensure that the investment recommendations made are not too aggressive for you. If you cannot take too much volatility (fluctuation in asset prices up and down over the short term), your financial professional will reduce your exposure to equities.

Now let’s look at our example through the lens of economic principles. If you just retired and are 65, you have one option right away. You can simply invest all your retirement money in 10-year Treasury notes issued by the Department of the Treasury. Treasury notes are free to buy. All you need to do is to participate in one of the Treasury auctions and put an indirect bid in. What is an indirect bid? An indirect bid is simply saying that you would like to buy a set dollar amount of notes, and you are willing to accept whatever the market interest rate set by the auction is. What is the yield on the 10-year Treasury Note right now? The 10-year Treasury closed at 1.85% on January 13, 2020. When you go to a financial professional, he/she is selecting investments in lieu of you simply purchasing the 10-year Treasury Note. Keep in mind that US Treasuries are among the safest investments in the world. They are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. Stocks, bonds, real estate, gold, and other investment options all have an added degree of risk. With the additional risk, there is a possibility for higher returns though. How does this relate to your 1.0% AUM fee?

Think about it this way: why are you paying your Financial Advisor? You are paying him/her to select investments that can earn you more than simply buying a US Treasury Bill, Note, or Bond. As an investor, you do not want to just settle for that return in most cases. With that being said though, you can just start out there and forget it. You do not need to engage a Financial Advisor to simply buy a 10-year US Treasury note. This means that you are paying the Financial Advisor to get you incremental returns.

In our example above for a retiree, your target investment return is 5.5%. If you can earn 5.5% during the year, the incremental return is 3.65% (5.50%-1.85%). Remember that you are paying the Financial Advisor 1.0% in an AUM fee. Therefore, you are paying the Financial Advisor 1.0% of your assets in order to get you an extra 3.65% in investment returns. Well, 1.0% is 27.4% of 3.65%. Thus, you are essentially paying a fee of 27.4% in reality. Now your financial professional would flip if the information was presented in this way. He/she would say that it is flawed. The mathematics cannot be argued with; however, I will admit that many folks in the financial services industry would disagree with this type of presentation.

Remember that you started out with $1 million. You could have gone to the bank and gotten cash and hid it in a safe within your residence. AUM fees are always presented by using your investment portfolio as the denominator. In our example, your investment fee is 1.0% ($10,000 / $1,000,000). I urge you to think about this though. Does that really matter? Of course, the fee you pay to your Financial Advisor will be calculated in this manner. But what are you paying for in terms of incremental returns? If you want to calculate what you are paying for (the value that your Financial Advisor provides), the reference to the starting balance in your brokerage account is moot. It is yours to begin with. You have that money at any given time. Therefore, it should be removed from the equation when trying to quantify the value your Financial Advisor provides in terms of investment returns on your portfolio.

Now remember that I said your target investment return was 5.5%. The long-term historical average of stocks is approximately 9.5%. If you choose to simply allocate only enough of your investment portfolio in stocks and the rest in cash to reach that 5.5% target, you will select an allocation of 53.0% stocks and 47.0% cash (5.5% = 53.0% * 9.5% + 47.0% * 1.0%). Note that I am assuming that cash earns 1.0% and that you can select an ETF or index mutual fund to capture the long-term historical average for stocks. Now your financial professional is working with you to select an investment portfolio that achieves the 5.5% target return, and their investment recommendations will be different than this hypothetical allocation.

The hypothetical allocation achieves your target return with a simple choice of two assets (an ETF or index mutual fund and a money market). Keep in mind that you will normally have a portion of your portfolio allocated to fixed income. The 10-Year US Treasury note is trading around 1.85% as of January 13, 2020. If you allocate your portfolio to 60% stocks, 30% 10-Year Treasury Note, and 10% cash, your expected return would be 5.5% (5.5% = 49.0% * 9.5% + 41.0% * 1.85% + 10.0% * 1.0%).

Whatever your Financial Advisor is charging you in terms of fees, you need to make that percentage more in your total return on a gross basis such that your net return equals your target return. In our example above, the assumed AUM fee was 1.0%. That investment fee means that you must earn 6.5% on a gross basis because you need to pay your Financial Advisor 1.0% for his/her services. After the fee is paid, the return on your portfolio needs to be 5.5% on a net basis.

So, how much weighting do stocks need to be in your portfolio to ensure that your overall returns are 5.5% after paying your AUM fee? The answer is 62.5%. Why? The expected return of your portfolio is 6.5% (6.5% = 62.5% * 9.5% + 27.5% * 1.85% + 10.0% * 1.0%) before fees. Given the average retiree’s risk tolerance at age 65 or older, many individual investors do not desire to have a portfolio with 60.0% or larger allocated to stocks. The more salient observation is that the individual investor had to increase his/her stock allocation by 13.5% in order to pay the 1.0% AUM fee. This increased allocation to stocks significantly increases the risk of our hypothetical portfolio. And keep in mind that the historical, long-term average of stocks is just that. It is an average and rarely is 9.5% in any given year.

But what if we could find a Financial Advisor that only charges 0.5% AUM fee? How would that change our example above? So, we now need to earn a gross investment return of 6.0% rather than 6.5%. The new portfolio allocation is 55.0% * 9.5% + 35.0% * 1.85% + 10.0% * 1.0% = 6.0%. Our main takeaways here are that the allocation to stocks only increases by 6.0% (55.0% – 49.0%), and this portfolio has a stock allocation less than 60.0%.

Now let’s look at some actual historical data. The S&P 500 Index did not have a single down year since 2008 if we looked at the subsequent five years of stock returns. The returns for 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 were 26.5%, 15.1%, 2.1%, and 16.0%, respectively. The average return over that span was 14.9%. As of December 31, 2019, the S&P 500 Index was up 31.5% for 2019 including the reinvestment of dividends. Now I am by no means making a prediction for 2020. However, I wanted to drive home the fact that, if your Financial Advisor sets up your financial plan with the assumption that your stock allocation will earn 9.5% on average, any actual return lower than that estimate will cause you to not reach your target return. What is the effect? You will not be able to maintain the lifestyle you had planned on, even more so if there are negative returns experienced in stocks over the coming years.

Essential/Important Lesson:

Let’s look at the next five years starting in 2015. A five-year period covers 2015-2019. If you start out with $1,000,000 invested in stocks and plan on earning 9.5% per year, you are expecting to have $1,574,239 at the end of five years. Let’s say that the return of stocks is only 4.5% per year over the next five years. You will only have $1,246,182 as of December 31, 2019. The difference is $328,057 less than you were expecting. The analysis gets worse at this point though. How can it get any worse?

Well, if you were planning on 9.5% returns from stocks per year, the next five-year period 2019-2023 needs an excess return to catch up. Thus, if your starting point on January 1, 2015 is $1,000,000, your financial plan is set up to have $2,478,228 as of December 31, 2023. If you are starting behind your estimate in 2019, the only way you can make up the difference is to have stocks earn 14.7% over that five-year period which is 5.2% higher than the historical average. As you can see underperformance can really hurt financial planning. The extremely important point here is that a 1.0% AUM fee will cause you to be even further behind your goals. Remember that the illustration above is gross returns. You only care about net returns and what your terminal value is. Terminal value is simply a fancy way to say how much money is actually in your brokerage account.

Are Your Financial Advisor’s Fees Reasonable? A Unique Perspective – Introduction

13 Monday Jan 2020

Posted by wmosconi in asset allocation, benchmarks, Education, financial advice, Financial Advisor, financial advisor fees, financial advisory fees, financial goals, financial markets, financial planning, financial services industry, investing advice, investing tips, investment advice, investment advisory fees, personal finance, reasonable fees, reasonable fees for financial advisor, reasonable fees for investment advice, reasonable financial advisor fees, statistics, Suitability

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This brief article introduces the topic for this article. Since I will be looking at the issue of the reasonableness of investing fees from the viewpoint of individual investors saving for retirement or currently in retirement, I will devote separate articles to these groups. Our journey will be an exploration of whether or not the fees you are paying to a financial professional are reasonable. Furthermore, we will examine how the expenses affect your overall investment performance and reaching your financial goals.

Most financial professionals are charging clients based upon assets under management (AUM). The most common fee is 1%. For example, the fee for a $1 million portfolio would be $10,000 ($1,000,000 * 1%). Now you have heard me talk about the importance of keeping fees as low as possible. Essentially you are trying to maximize your investment returns each year. If you have quite a few needs, a Financial Advisor usually can provide a number of different services and advice. For example, you also may need assistance with legal and tax advice. Additionally, you may have more complex financial planning needs. Financial professionals will assist you with portfolio allocation always.

With that being said, I am going to look at AUM fees in a way that you may not be familiar with. A significant number of induvial investors do not need all the services that financial professionals offer (e.g. tax planning, trusts, charitable giving, and more). I can tell you already that the financial services industry is not happy with and/or does not agree with this presentation. However, my only goal (the overarching goal of a good portion of my blog too) is to help you and provide you with an argument that may finally give you the impetus to manage your own investments or think seriously about working with a financial planner that charges fees on an hourly basis or a flat fee.

I also encourage you to read The Wall Street Journal newspaper for October 5, 2012. On the bottom of the Business & Finance section, Jason Zweig discusses the many conflicts of interest that Financial Advisors have. FINRA (a Self-Regulatory Organization comprised of all brokerage firms) issued a 22,000-word report about fees, conflicts, and compensation of Financial Advisors. Oddly enough, the words “advice” and “investing” showed up less than 10 times. The financial services industry is concerned about this matter, so you should take note and learn much more about what you are paying for.

Here is a link to the above article:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443493304578038811945287932

The next article will start off with individual investors that are currently in retirement. Then another article will come out which discusses the same ramifications for individual investors that are currently saving for retirement.

Individual Investors Should Treat Obtaining Financial Advice Like Buying a New Car

29 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by wmosconi in asset allocation, behavioral finance, Consumer Finance, financial advice, financial advisor fees, financial advisory fees, financial goals, financial markets, financial planning, financial planning books, financial services industry, Income Taxes, Individual Investing, individual investors, investing, investing advice, investing information, investing tips, investment advice, investment advisory fees, investments, personal finance, reasonable fees, reasonable fees for financial advisor, reasonable fees for investment advice, reasonable financial advisor fees, risk tolerance, stock market, Stock Market Returns, stock prices

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I had a long conversation with a friend and business associate about how I think individual investors approach obtaining financial advice. We went back and forth for almost 30 minutes. However, I found myself stumbling upon the analogy of purchasing a new vehicle. This analogy encapsulates how individual investors might want to think about building their investment portfolios, setting financial goals and how to obtain them, establishing their risk tolerance, and addressing any special situations that might pertain to their specific situation (e.g. caring for an elderly parent in their house). I should state at the outset that, if you have more than $1 million in investable assets (i.e. an accredited investor), the size of your portfolio demands special attention. If you have not amassed $1 million, please read on to the rest of this article.

First, I would like to lay out the typical new vehicle purchase scenario and then turn to its applicability in the case of financial advice. Most people start off the process by doing a good deal of research on the available options. After considering his/her situation, the individual will go to the vehicle dealership. For the purposes of this particular example, let’s suppose that the vehicle dealership offers a number of different car manufacturers as options and then the various models associated with them. Luckily today, there is a lot less haggling (well at least upfront in the process) and the vehicles’ prices are normally right around the MSRP. However, you as a consumer need to select the car make and also the specific model.

Usually a salesperson will assist you with the process. Even though you can do a lot of homework prior to picking out a new vehicle, it still does not fully capture actually looking at the vehicle. Of course, you also need to sit in it and take a test drive. The salesperson is able to translate what your needs are to try to select the best option. For example, do you need to transport the kids to basketball practice? What if you take turns carpooling and pick up an extra 3-6 kids? How big should your SUV be? What if you drive a lot of highway miles and a lease option may not work for you? Do you like to have a decent amount of horsepower to be able to merge onto highway traffic? What about the manufacturer’s warranty? Does the dealership service the vehicles onsite? What about financing options (i.e. buy or lease)? The list of questions could go on and on.

Given the entire list of questions you might ask, the salesperson is an integral part of the vehicle buying, or leasing, process. After the salesperson has finally answered all of your questions, let’s say you decide on a price, the financing options, and the color/options/model. If you make the purchase, the salesperson will earn a commission. Once you leave the dealership’s parking lot, you are then responsible for the maintenance of the vehicle. Fingers crossed, you should only need to take car of oil changes and normal maintenance (e.g. changing the air filter, flushing the transmission fluid, etc.). What would you do if the salesperson came over to your house and wanted to check if you were still pleased with the vehicle you selected in the second year? Does it fit your needs and perform as expected? Wow, that experience would be one of pretty good customer services. But now, the salesperson’s next utterance is that you own him/her $500. What? Well, he/she responds that he/she helped you out and things are going according to plan. My guess is that you would be dumbfounded and refuse to pay another commission to the salesperson in year two of ownership.

What in the world does this have to do with financial advice? I would argue that the analogy fits quite well with the normal way financial advice is given to individual investors. When you first sit down with a Financial Planner, Financial Advisor, or Registered Investment Advisor, he or she really walks through your entire life situation. Additionally, that person will assess your tolerance for risk which is not always as easy as it sounds. Usually most financial professionals will include questions that relate to your behavior under certain instances of financial market conditions. So, you cannot simply ask only objective yes/no questions. Other big thing that may come up are any insurance, tax planning, or estate planning needs that you have. Another significant area is trying to find out if you might have any special circumstances. The caring of an elderly parent was provided above. But there are myriad other situations that might require special planning considerations unique to your family.

The vast majority of financial professionals no longer charge commissions. Rather, they will charge a fee based upon the total asset in your portfolio of stocks, bonds, other assets, and cash. The financial services industry calls this an AUM (assets under management) fee in the jargon, and a very typical fee that one will see is 1%. What does that mean? Well, to use round numbers, let’s say you have $1 million dollars in your account of financial assets. You would then pay a fee of $10,000 ($1 million * 1%). To be technical though, the fee is normally prorated over four quarters throughout the year and not in one lump sum. Given all the assistance that I listed in the previous paragraph, there is no doubt that the financial professional earns his or his AUM fee. But what happens when year two of your financial relationship begins?

For illustrative purposes, I am going to assume that your life situation does not change at all. In the first year of your relationship with the financial professional, he or she is likely to have prepared an asset allocation for at least the next five years. One would expect a long-term investing plan. Of course, he or she may recommend that based, upon the price movement in the financial markets, you should reallocate your investments to either the same target allocation in year one or slightly different percentages. He or she may even recommend that you sell a particular investment and replace it with what he or she deems to be a better performing investment vehicle for the future. Well, to keep using round numbers, if your investment portfolio stays constant, you would pay another $10,000 (again $1 million * 1%).

The year two situation is akin to car maintenance in year two of your ownership of that vehicle from my car vehicle purchase analogy. Now, if you blew a head gasket in your car’s engine, you would want to take the vehicle back to the dealership or go to a trusted mechanic. The latter represents a major change in your life situation, financial goals, income tax ramifications, and other major events. Otherwise, we have a situation where you are paying the car salesperson another commission in year two. Now my analogy may not be entirely “apples to apples” (as my business associate said during our discussion). However, it is close enough to get to the point that I am trying to make in terms of financial advice. You need to be very cautious with how much money you pay in expenses for financial advice. Why? It really eats into the investment performance returns you will realize. I am all for paying for financial advice when there is a complicated situation, but, if nothing of import changes, it can be hard to justify.

So, what can you do if my analogy resonates with you? Well, there are two options that I will provide. However, there are other avenues to proceed down. I will discuss each in turn.

First, you can select a financial professional that charges a fee-only amount or one that charges by the hour. The fee-only financial professional will charge you a set amount per year for financial advice, and, in almost all cases, it is significantly lower than the $10,000 in our example. The hourly financial professional is just as it sounds. In the second year, you might require 10 hours of financial advice throughout the year, some of which might include just coaching you through the inevitable volatility in financial markets. Depending on the area that you reside in, you can expect to pay anywhere between $250 to $500 per hour. Using the 10-hour amount, you would be paying anywhere from $2,500 ($250 * 10 hours) and $5,000 ($500 * 10 hours). Using either type of financial professional with a different fee structure will lower your overall investment fees. Note that the quality of financial advice usually does not decrease in most cases. And yes, there are certain cases where the quality will increase markedly.

Second, you can use an external investment account at the beginning of your relationship with a financial professional that charges a percentage of assets under management (AUM). What does this mean? The vast majority of asset managers are large and sophisticated enough to handle this arrangement at the outset. For example, you would establish an investment account where your financial professional is located. Next, you would establish an investment account with another brokerage firm and allow your financial professional to have access to the investment portfolio you maintain. Note that the access is only for purposes of preparing reports for you and not to execute actual trades of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or any other financial asset. For instance, you might keep 50% with the financial professional’s firm and another 50% in the external account. You would just maintain the portfolio allocation that your financial professional would like you to have in the external account. In order to ensure that you do not deviate from his or her investment recommendations, your monthly or quarterly investment performance reports would lump together the assets at the financial professional’s firm and your external account.

In regard to the second option, just because asset managers can easily do this reporting for you, does not mean that they will not push back. Some asset managers and financial professionals get even confrontational. It is understandable since the more assets you maintain at their firm the larger the investment advice fee. But this response can be very informative for you. If your financial professional does not handle your request of this potential option diplomatically, this may be a cue to seek financial advice elsewhere.

So, have I successfully convinced you that buying investment advice is just like buying or leasing a new vehicle? My guess would be that you think the analogy is not a perfect one. I will readily admit that it is not and really is not meant to be. Rather, I wanted to get you thinking about the financial advice you receive and investment fees from another viewpoint. Investment fees have an outsized effect on the returns that you will experience over time.

Their impact is even greater if you take into account the “opportunity cost” of investment fees. However, that is another topic entirely that I will not delve into. If you would like more information on the idea of “opportunity cost” and investment fees, you can refer to a previous article that I wrote. Here is the link:

https://latticeworkwealth.com/2014/02/26/what-is-the-800-pound-gorilla-in-the-room-for-retirees-it-is-12-5/

The Top 5 Most Read Articles in my Investing Blog During 2015

29 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by wmosconi in asset allocation, bond market, bonds, Consumer Finance, Fed, Federal Reserve, finance, finance theory, financial advice, Financial Advisor, financial advisor fees, financial advisory fees, financial goals, financial markets, financial planning, financial services industry, Individual Investing, individual investors, interest rates, investing, investing advice, investing information, investing tips, investment advice, investment advisory fees, investments, passive investing, personal finance, portfolio, reasonable fees, reasonable fees for financial advisor, reasonable fees for investment advice, reasonable financial advisor fees, rebalancing, rebalancing investment portfolio, rising interest rate environment, rising interest rates, risk, risk tolerance, statistics, stock market, stock prices, stocks, Yellen

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The most popular articles read over the past year included some writings from a couple of years ago and were also on a myriad of topics. The listing of articles below represents the most frequent viewings working downward.

Are Your Financial Advisor’s Fees Reasonable? Are You Actually Adding More Risk to Your Ability to Reach Your Long-Term Financial Goals? Here is a Unique Way to Look at What Clients Pay For.

This article has consistently drawn the most attention from readers of my investing blog. Individual investors have learned from me and many others that one of the most important components of being successful long-term investors is by keeping investment costs as low as possible. This particular writing examines investing costs from a different perspective. In general, the higher the investment costs an individual investor incurs, the higher the allocation to riskier investments he/she must have to reach his/her financial goals.

Link to the complete article: https://latticeworkwealth.com/2013/10/26/are-your-financial-advisors-fees-reasonable-are-you-actually-adding-more-risk-to-your-ability-to-reach-your-long-term-financial-goals-here-is-a-unique-way-to-look-at-what-clients-pay-for/

2. Are Your Financial Advisor’s Fees Reasonable? Here is a Unique Way to Look at What Clients Pay For.

This article is closely followed by the previous one in terms of popularity and forms the basis for that discussion actually. The general concept contained in this writing is that most asset managers now charge investors a fee for managing their investments based upon Assets under Management (AUM). The fee is typically 1% but can be 2% or higher. The investment costs to the individual investor per year are the total balance in his/her brokerage account multiplied by the fee which is commonly 1%. However, the 1% grossly misrepresents the actual investment costs because the individual investor starts off with the total balance in his/her brokerage account. The better way to express the fees charged per year is to divide the AUM percentage by the growth in the portfolio over the year. That percentage answer will be quite a bit higher.

Link to the complete article: https://latticeworkwealth.com/2013/08/07/are-your-financial-advisors-fees-reasonable-here-is-a-unique-way-to-look-at-what-clients-pay-for/

3) Rebalancing Your Investment Portfolio – Summary

Earlier in the year, I compiled a three-part series that examined the concept of rebalancing one’s investment portfolio. Rebalancing is an excellent investing strategy to learn about and apply at the end of the year. Rebalancing in its simplest definition is the periodic reallocation of the investment percentages in one’s investment portfolio back to an original model after a passage of time. This summary of rebalancing provides a look at rebalancing that is helpful for novice individual investors through more advanced folks.

Link to the complete article: https://latticeworkwealth.com/2015/11/25/rebalancing-your-investment-portfolio-summary/

4) How to Create an Investment Portfolio and Properly Measure your Performance: Part 2 of 2

While this article is the second part of a discussion on the creation of an investment portfolio, it is arguably the more important of the two because it looks at a topic too often not relayed to individual investors. This writing talks about the importance of measuring the performance of your investment portfolio’s investment returns. The financial media tends to focus solely on comparing your portfolio to the performance of the S&P 500 Index. That comparison is “apples to oranges” the vast majority of the time because most individual investors have many different types of investments in their portfolios. Therefore, I show you how institutional investors measure the performance of their investment portfolios. The concept is broken down into smaller parts so it is very understandable and usable for individual investors.

Link to the complete article: https://latticeworkwealth.com/2013/07/19/how-to-create-an-investment-portfolio-and-properly-measure-your-performance-part-2-of-2/

5) How Can Investors Survive in a Rising Interest Rate Environment? – Updated

Although this particular article was first published a couple of years ago, the content is even more valuable today. The Federal Reserve increased the target range for the Federal Funds Rate by 0.25% on December 16, 2015 and has indicated that more interest rate increases are likely in the future. Thus, we have entered a period in which interest rates are generally headed higher over the next several of years. Most financial pundits will bemoan this type of environment because higher interest rates mean that the prices of most bonds go down. It makes it harder to earn any investment returns from bonds. However, there are a number of investments and investment strategies that benefit from an increasing interest rate environment. This article examines six different things individual investors can do.

Link to the complete article: https://latticeworkwealth.com/2013/11/30/how-can-investors-survive-in-a-rising-interest-rate-environment-updated/

I hope you enjoy these popular articles from my investing blog. My goal is to keep on releasing more information in 2016 to assist individual investors in navigating the world of investing. Thank you to all my readers in the United States and internationally!

Book Promotion on Amazon.com – A New Paradigm for Investing: Can Your Financial Advisor Answer These Questions?

14 Thursday May 2015

Posted by wmosconi in book deals, books, finance, finance books, financial advice, Financial Advisor, financial advisor fees, financial markets, financial planning, financial planning books, financial services industry, investing, investing advice, investing books, investment advice, investment advisory fees, investment books, investments, stock market, stocks

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The original blog post did not make it to all informational outlets. There is a deal on one of my books in the A New Paradigm for Investing series.

Latticework Wealth Management, LLC

Greetings to all my loyal readers of this blog. How would you like to learn a better way to seek investment advice? I list and thoroughly discuss questions you can ask prospective Financial Advisors when interviewing them. Selecting someone to assist you with the process, which is so incredibly important for you, can be a nightmare of complexity. By reading this book, you will be in the 95^th percentile of individual investors in terms of the knowledge necessary to have the tools and information to walk into those Financial Advisor meetings and understand the discussion/jargon and feel confident. This book on Amazon.com is available for download onto a Kindle. Additionally, there is a Kindle app for iPhones and Android devices which is free to download. Please feel free to check out the title below. I have provided a link to make it easier. My email address is latticeworkwealth@gmail.com should…

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Book Promotion on Amazon.com – A New Paradigm for Investing: Can Your Financial Advisor Answer These Questions?

14 Thursday May 2015

Posted by wmosconi in book deals, books, business books, finance, finance books, finance theory, financial advice, Financial Advisor, financial advisor fees, financial markets, financial planning, financial services industry, investing, investing advice, investment advice, investment advisory fees, investment books, investments, personal finance, reasonable fees for financial advisor, stock market, stocks

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book deals, books, business, business books, finance, finance books, financial advice, Financial Advisor, financial markets, financial planning, financial services, financial services industry, investing, investing books, investment advisory, investment advisory fees, investment books, investment fees, investments, personal finance, reasonableness of finance advice, stock market, stocks

The link to the book is as follows:

A New Paradigm for Investing: Can Your Financial Advisor Answer These Questions?

http://www.amazon.com/New-Paradigm-Investing-Financial-Questions-ebook/dp/B00F3BDTHW/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388595896&sr=1-3&keywords=a+new+paradigm+for+investing+by+william+nelson

The book listed is normally $9.99 but I am offering it for a lower price over the course of the week (May 14, 2015 through May 18, 2015). For most of the day today, the book is $1.99 which is 81% off. The price of the book will be gradually increasing during the course of that period.

I would like to thank my international viewers of my blog as well. The blog can be located at http://www.latticework.com. I also wanted to especially thank some selected followers of my @NelsonThought and @LatticeworkWlth Twitter accounts (each of whom I would recommend following for the content and insight):

Followers on @NelsonThought:

The Wall Street Journal Wealth Report @WSJwealthreport – #wsjexperts
The Wall Street Journal Central Banks @WSJCentralBanks – Coverage of the Federal Reserve and other international central banks by @WSJ reporters
The Royce Funds @RoyceFunds – Small Cap value investing asset manager
Research Magazine @Research_Mag – Latest industry information for wirehouses and ETFs
Barron’s Online @BarronsOnline – Weekly financial news magazine of Dow Jones
Cleveland Fed Research @ClevFedResearch
Pedro da Costa @pdacosta – Central banking and economics reporter at The Wall Street Journal
Muriel Siebert & Co. @SiebertCo
Roger Wohlner, CFP® @rwohlner – Fee-only Financial Planner for individuals
Ed Moldaver @emoldaver – #1 ranked Financial Advisor in New Jersey by Barron’s 2012
Muni Credit @MuniCredit – Noted municipal credit arbiter
Berni Xiong (shUNG) @BerniXiong – Author, writing coach, and national speaker

Followers on @LatticeworkWlth:

Tracy Alloway @tracyalloway – US Financial Correspondent at Financial Times
Vanguard FA @Vanguard_FA – Vanguard’s ETF research and education
EU External Action @eu_eeas – Latest news from the European External Action Service (EEAS)
Charlie Wells @charliewwells – Reporter and Editor at The Wall Street Journal
Sri Jegarajah @CNBCSri – CNBC anchor and correspondent for CNBC World
Jesse Colombo @TheBubbleBubble – Columnist at Forbes
Alastair Winter @AlastairWinter – Chief Economist at Daniel Stewart & Company
Investment Advisor @InvestAdvMag – Financial magazine for Financial Advisors
Gary Oneil @GaryONeil2 – Noted expert in creating brands for start-ups
MJ Gottlieb @MJGottlieb – Co-Founder of hustlebranding.com
Bob Burg @BobBurg – Bestselling author of business books
Phil Gerbyshak @PhilGerbyshak – Expert in the use of social media for sales

Is There a Way to Discern Whether or Not a Prospective Financial Advisor Will Provide You with Top-Notch Service? Short Answer is Yes.

06 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by wmosconi in asset allocation, bonds, business, Consumer Finance, Education, finance, financial advisor fees, financial planning, Individual Investing, investing, investment advice, investment advisory fees, investments, personal finance, portfolio, reasonable fees, reasonable fees for financial advisor, reasonable fees for investment advice, statistics, Suitability

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asset allocation, AUM, AUM fees, business, CFP, education, finance, Financial Advisor, investment advisor, investment advisory fees, investments, portfolio, reasonable fees, reasonable fees for financial advice, retirement, RIA, selecting a Finnacial Advisor

Most individual investors rely primarily on trust and the ability to develop a long-term relationship primarily to determine whether or not a prospective financial professional is the right choice. Turning over the management of your investments to someone else is a major decision that has many implications. Your current lifestyle in retirement or future lifestyle in retirement and meeting your other financial goals along the way are of paramount importance. The assessment of your personal risk tolerance and understanding of how the financial markets work is inextricably linked. With so many choices out there in terms of whose investment advice to value, it can be extremely challenging to decide who to pick or what firm offers the best investment, financial planning, and tax/legal advice. With that being said, there is a critical step that I wanted to share with you that can limit the possibility that you might end up with a financial professional or firm that will not work as hard as you would like to ensure that your financial future is secure.

The answer to this question lies in the compensation to the financial professional as a result of taking on your business. Now keep in mind that not all financial professionals will fall into this generalized group. However, financial incentives and time constraints make this a significant factor in the servicing of your account. The single most important question you can ask a prospective financial advisor, as it relates to this topic, is how much the average value of a client account is. Why is this so important? The reason it is so important is that any financial professional has a number of client accounts to service, and time is limited and constrained of course. From the financial professional’s perspective, the ideal would be to acquire new clients that offer the most potential revenue. Let’s go over some of the specifics of the financial services industry to illustrate the importance of this average account size bogey.

Most full-service financial services firms will categorize the client accounts of a financial professional in various tiers. There are normally tier one, tier two, tier three, and other clients. Tier one clients are those who offer the most revenue potential. These clients tend to have the largest amount of assets. Tier two clients are clients that have less assets than tier one but offer the promise of moving into tier one in the near future. Tier three clients have below average assets in comparison to the other tiers and show no immediate promise for a lucrative revenue opportunity in the coming years. There are then all other accounts that really should be transitioned to another financial services firm. When the firm considers all the costs associated with maintaining that client account, it does not make economic sense. It is far better for the financial professional to recommend that the client picks another financial services firm and professional most always does so via a referral. Note that different firms have different terms to describe these classifications. However, the general concept holds across the entire industry.

Here is the key component as it relates to individual investors specifically. Tier one clients tend to be the top 20% clients in terms of account size for a financial professional. Typically a certain relationship holds in these cases. This tier of clients usually will yield roughly 80% of the overall revenue for financial professional. Oddly enough, it follows very closely with the famed Pareto Principle. The tier two clients fall below that top tier, but they show promise for the future. Many times these individuals have investment accounts at other financial firms or will be coming into a good deal of new monies in the future. They might be converted to tier one status. These accounts tend to fall into the 21%-50% of clients managed by the financial professional. The tier three clients are the bottom half of the accounts managed by that financial professional. There also are “legacy” accounts that really offer little to no revenue and sometimes are unprofitable under certain circumstances.

Now you can look at the financial incentives from the financial professional’s prospective. Let’s say that the financial professional earns a 1% fee on all assets under management (AUM) which is very common across the industry. Therefore, if a client has $1,000,000, the annual fee is $10,000 ($1,000,000 * 1%). A client with $250,000 at the same AUM fee will yield an annual fee of $2,500 ($250,000 * 1%). Thus, it would take four of the latter clients to equal the revenue from the other single client. Given that any financial professional has limited time to meet with clients, it makes perfect sense that he/she would prefer to have only one client since the compensation is the same. The financial professional with the $1,000,000 client can service that account and look for another three clients to increase that revenue (i.e. similar time/effort expended overall). The general key is to garner the most assets under management with the fewest amount of clients. That allows the financial professional time manage his/her time most effectively and efficiently.

Here is the most important question you can ask any prospective financial professional: What is the average account size of your clients? If the average account size is higher than your investment portfolio, the chances are quite high that your account and relationship will receive much less attention than that financial professional’s larger account. Now there can be extreme cases where a few large client accounts distort the average account size to the upside, but you can always ask the general range of client account size overall. Two things will be at play in a situation where your investment account value is less than the average. First, it makes more sense for the financial professional to spend more time with the tier one clients from a compensation perspective. Other financial firms are constantly trying to “steal” these accounts to their firms by offering more services and additional financial product offerings. Second, depending on the amount that your account size strays from the average, you will most likely receive customer service contact from a junior member on the team and/or a “cookie-cutter” investment portfolio recommendation.

I will expand a bit more on the last comments. Most financial services firms use what is termed a “turn-key approach” for tier three clients. There are set asset allocation models with a limited amount of components in the recommended portfolio. The advice can be nearly identical to what you might find by simply going onto the websites of Vanguard, T Rowe Price, Fidelity, or Morningstar for free. Now please do not infer that I am intimating that the asset allocation models of those websites are not valuable or match your particular risk tolerance and financial plan. The point is why should you pay a financial professional to get a recommended asset allocation that is virtually identical to these offerings. You would be better off not paying a fee whatsoever since you can replicate those portfolios for free and follow the ongoing changes to these model portfolios over time. Note that the underlying investments in these model portfolios are quite transparent and regularly updated on the websites and in many cases come from regulatory filings to the SEC.

While it is true that some financial professionals provide the same level of service without regard to client account size, but these financial professionals predominantly tend to charge a flat-fee or hourly fee for investment advisory and financial planning services. Financial professionals that are compensated with AUM fees or via commissions have a very tempting incentive to not only spend more time with larger client accounts to retain the client over time but concentrate on obtaining new clients with potential to be in the aforementioned tier one category.

To summarize at this point, the primary question to weed out the vast majority of potential financial professionals to manage your money is to ask “What is your average client account balance?” If your account would be less than that average, there is a strong probability that the future attention to your account relationship will be less than the other client accounts. If you have questions in the future, especially during volatile times in the global financial markets or major life changes, you may not be able to get a hold of your financial professional for guidance in a timeframe acceptable to you. The other options you have are to find a financial professional where you are above the average or find a financial professional that charges a flat-fee or on an hourly basis. At least in the latter option, you know that the financial profession spends more of an equal amount of time with each client. Every client account tends to get the same amount of attention, and there is very little distinction in terms of importance. Think of it this way, it is your hard-earned money and your future is on the line, you deserve to be one of the important clients of your financial professional. Not just a name and account number.

What is the 800-Pound Gorilla in the Room for Retirees? It is 12.5.

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by wmosconi in active investing, active versus passive debate, asset allocation, bonds, business, Education, Fiduciary, finance, financial advisor fees, financial planning, Individual Investing, investing, investing, investments, stocks, bonds, asset allocation, portfolio, investment advisory fees, investments, math, passive investing, personal finance, portfolio, risk, stocks, volatility

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bonds, business, Certified Financial Planners, CFP, finance, Financial Advsiors, financial planning, individual investing, investment advisory fees, investments, personal finance, Registered Investment Advisors, retirement, RIA, stocks, volatility

The 12.5 I am referring to is 12.5%, and it relates to investment advisory fees. I have discussed the effects of investment advisory fees at length in previous posts. In general, most individual investors pay fees to financial services firms that are too high in comparison to the value provided in many cases. For example, the vast majority of individual investors do not need complex, strategic tax planning, estate planning and legal advice, or sophistical financial planning. However, the firms that most people invest with offer those services within the fee structure. There is very little in the way of options to select a larger wealth management firm that will provide only asset allocation advice at a reduced fee because the individual investor does not need the other services when it comes to tax, legal, and sophisticated financial planning. I wrote an article several months ago in regard to how you can look at the value added by your financial professional. It is worth a review in terms of what he/she can do for you that you cannot simply do yourself using a passive investing strategy. Here is the link:

https://latticeworkwealth.com/2013/10/26/are-your-financial-advisors-fees-reasonable-are-you-actually-adding-more-risk-to-your-ability-to-reach-your-long-term-financial-goals-here-is-a-unique-way-to-look-at-what-clients-pay-for/

I would like to focus on a different way of looking at investment advisory fees. My primary focus will be on retirees; however, the logic directly applies to those in the wealth accumulation phase of life trying to save for retirement. As I have mentioned previously, the standard fee for investment advisory services is normally 1% of assets under management (AUM). This structure simply means that an individual investor pays $1 in fees for every $100 invested. Another way to look at it is that you will pay $10,000 annually if your account balance is $1,000,000 ($1,000,000 * 1%). I would like to go through an illustration to show what this means in terms of your investment performance, overall risk profile, and the ability to reach your long-term financial goals.

Most individual investors do not write out a check to their financial professional. Rather, they have the investment advisory fees paid out of the investment returns in their portfolios. My example does not make any difference how you pay your fees, but it can be somewhat hidden if you are not writing out a check. The fees just appear as a line item on your daily activity section of your brokerage statement; most investors skim over it. In order to make the mathematics easier to follow, I am going to use a retiree with a $1,000,000 account balance and a 1% AUM fee annually. My entire argument applies no matter what your account balance is or your AUM fee. You just need to insert your personal account balance and AUM fee which may be higher or lower. So let’s get started.

In my hypothetical scenario of a $1,000,000 portfolio subject to a 1% AUM fee, this retiree will have to pay $10,000 to his/her financial professional for investment advisory services rendered. Well, we can look at this fee from the standpoint of the portfolio as a whole in terms of investment performance necessary to pay that fee. The portfolio will need to increase by at least 1% to pay the fee in full. Now most financial professionals will tell clients that they can expect to earn 8% per year by investing in stocks. So using that figure (which is close to the historical average), we can get to the fee by allocating $125,000 of the overall portfolio to stocks in order to increase the portfolio on average by 8% to be able to pay the $10,000 fee ($125,000 * 8% = $10,000).

What does that mean in terms of your overall portfolio allocation to stocks? You can imagine that, whatever your total allocation to stocks is, 12.5% of that amount is invested simply to pay fees. For example, if you are just starting out in retirement at age 65 and have 60% allocated to stocks, 12.5% of the expected return (8%) from stocks in your total portfolio will go to pay your annual investment advisory fees and 47.5% of the expected return (8%) from stocks in your total portfolio will add to your account balance.

The math works out this way: $1,000,000 * 60% = $600,000 // $600,000 (invested in stocks) * 8% (expected return from stocks) = $48,000 // $48,000 – $10,000 (AUM fee at 1%) = $38,000. An alternative way to do the math is to take the total allocation to stocks and subtract the necessary allocation to stocks to pay the AUM fee, and that result is the investment return for the year that remains in your account balance which is $38,000 (So take 60.0% – 12.5% = 47.5% // $1,000,000 * 47.5% * 8% = $38,000).

The paragraph above has major impacts for your portfolio. Firstly, it illustrates how much additional risk you are taking on in your portfolio as a whole. In order to breakeven net of fees, you need to invest 12.5% of your portfolio into stocks. Retirees are in the wealth distribution phase of life, and most are living off the investment account earnings (capital gains, dividends, and interest) and principal. Since retirees have no income from working and will not be making any additional contributions, they are impacted greater than other investors in the way of volatility. Stocks are more volatile investments than bonds but offer the promise of higher returns. It is the simple risk/reward tradeoff. Second, it shows that the higher the fees for retirees the more vulnerable they are to volatility as a whole. Since retirees need to withdraw money on a consistent/systematic basis, a higher allocation of their portfolio to riskier investments are more vulnerable than other investors that have longer timeframes prior to retirement (wealth accumulation phase). If there are major downturns in the stock market, retirees still have to withdraw from their accounts in order to pay living expenses. They do not have the luxury of not selling. Yes, a retiree could sell bonds instead of stocks but then the allocation of stocks has to rise by definition as a percentage of the entire portfolio.

There is a way to rethink the investment strategy for a retiree. In today’s investing environment, there are many more investment offerings that offer financial products at much lower expenses than traditional active mutual fund managers. These include ETFs and index mutual funds. The expenses typically are less than 0.20% (in fact, most are significantly lower than this). Additionally, there has been the proliferation of independent Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) and Certified Financial Planners (CFPs) over the past 10-15 years who charge fee-only (hourly) or flat fee. Most of these financial professionals charge significantly lower fees than the traditional 1% AUM fee. In fact, it is possible to cut your fees by 50% at least. Now the flipside may be that you might not have the ability to consult with some about certain sophisticated tax, legal/estate, and financial planning strategies. However, most retirees do not need that advice to begin with. The average retiree only needs a sound asset allocation of his/her investment portfolio given his/her risk tolerance and financial goals. To learn more about independent RIAs and CFPs, I have included these links:

1) RIA – http://www.riastandsforyou.com/benefits-of-an-ria.html

2) CFP – http://www.plannersearch.org/why-cfp/Pages/Why-Hire-a-Certified-Financial-Planner.aspx

The main benefit in terms of reducing fees is not only that the retiree keeps more money, but, more importantly, he/she can reduce the overall risk of the portfolio. Let’s go back to our hypothetical example of a retiree with a $1,000,000 who is charged a 1% AUM fee or $10,000 per year. If the total investment advisory fees are reduced by 50%, the total annual fee is 0.5% or $5,000 per year. What does this mean? In our first example, the retiree had to allocate 12.5% of his/her portfolio of stocks to pay the $10,000 annual AUM fee (assuming an 8% expected return). If the fees are 50% less, the retiree now only has to allocate 6.25% of the portfolio to stocks in order to pay the annual investment advisory fees ($1,000,000 * 6.25% = $62,500 // $62,500 * 8% = $5,000).

Now if we go back to the longer example of a simple 60% stock and 40% bond portfolio, the retiree in this case is able to invest 53.75% in stocks and 46.25% in bonds and still pay the annual investment advisory fees. The math is as follows: ($1,000,000 * 53.75% = $537,500 // $537,500 * 8% = $43,000 // $43,000 – $5,000 new annual fees = $38,000). You will note that the retiree has $38,000 in his/her portfolio after the annual fees are paid out. This dollar amount is equal to the other hypothetical retiree who had to pay a 1% AUM fee. The example illustrates that both investors have the same expected increase to their portfolio but the retiree with the lower fees is able to get to that figure with a portfolio that is less risky because he/she is able to allocate 6.25% less to stocks.

Another way to look at this scenario is that the retiree in the second case with 50% lower fees could have alternatively chosen to reduce his/her stock allocation by 5%. For example, the retiree could have started with a portfolio allocation of 55% instead of using the 53.75% stock allocation. In this example, the retiree would have an expected return after fees that is $1,000 higher than the retiree from the first example and take less risk. The math is as follows: ($1,000,000 * 55% = $550,000 // $550,000 * 8% = $44,000 // $44,000 – $5,000 = $39,000 // $39,000 – $38,000 = $1,000). The retiree in this example would have a higher expected return from his/her entire portfolio of 0.1%. While this figure might not sound like much, the more important point is that this return is achieved with less risk (only 55% allocation to stocks versus a 60% allocation to stocks).

A financial professional might argue that he/she is able to create an asset allocation model for an average retiree that will end up having investment returns higher than that recommended by the independent RIA or CFP. Of course, this might be the case. However, in order to have the retiree be indifferent between the two scenarios, the portfolio recommended by the financial professional charging a 1% AUM fee must be able to return 0.5% more annually at an absolute minimum. Now this does not even consider the riskiness of the retiree’s portfolio. In order to have a portfolio earn an additional 0.5% per year, the client will have to accept investing in riskier asset classes. Therefore, given the additional risk, the retiree should require even more than an additional 0.5% overall return to compensate him/her for the potential for higher volatility.

As you can see, the level of fees makes a big difference. The more you are able to cut the fees on your retirement account (and any account for that matter) the less risky your portfolio can be positioned. In the aforementioned example, the overall reduction in the exposure to stocks can be a maximum of 12.5% to stocks. Now the average retiree will most likely not want to forgo any investment advice from a financial professional. However, in the case of person able to lower his/her investment fees by 50%, he/she was able to reduce his/her investments in stocks by 6.25% (12.5% * 50%). In fact, you can figure out the possible reduction in exposure to stocks by multiplying the 12.5% by the reduction in fees you are able to achieve. For example, let’s say that you are able to reduce your investment fees by 70%. You would be able to reduce your allocation to stocks by 8.7% (12.5% * 70%).

The entire point of this article is to show you how you can be able to reduce the volatility in your portfolio and not sacrifice overall investment returns. If investing in stocks during your retirement years makes you nervous, this methodology can be used to help you sleep better at night because you have less total money of your entire retirement savings allocated to stocks. However, you are not sacrificing investment returns. Always remember that in the world of investment advisory fees, it truly is a “zero sum game”. All this means is that the investment advisory fees are reducing your net investment portfolio gains. The gain in the value of your portfolio either goes to you or your financial professional. The more you learn about how investment advisory fees, the types of financial professionals available to advise you offering different fee schedules, and how the financial markets work, the more gains you will keep in your portfolio.

A New Paradigm for Investing: Can Your Financial Advisor Answer These Questions?

01 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by wmosconi in asset allocation, bonds, business, Consumer Finance, Education, Fed Taper, Fed Tapering, Federal Reserve, finance, financial advisor fees, financial planning, Individual Investing, investing, investment advisory fees, investments, math, Modern Portfolio Theory, MPT, Nobel Prize in Economics, personal finance, portfolio, rising interest rate environment, rising interest rates, risk, statistics, stock prices, stocks, Suitability, volatility

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Amazon book deals, asset allocation, books, business, education, finance, Financial Advisors, financial planning, individual investing, investing, investment advsiory fees, Modern Portfolio Theory, MPT, reasonable investment advisory fees, retirement

Greetings to all my loyal readers of this blog. How would you like to start off the New Year of 2014 by reevaluating your investment portfolio and how you get investment advice? This book on Amazon.com is available for download onto a Kindle. Additionally, there is a Kindle app for iPhones and Android devices which is free to download. Please feel free to check out the titles below. I have provided links to make it easier. My email address is latticeworkwealth@gmail.com.

The link to the book is as follows:

A New Paradigm for Investing: Can Your Financial Advisor Answer These Questions?

http://www.amazon.com/New-Paradigm-Investing-Financial-Questions-ebook/dp/B00F3BDTHW/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388595896&sr=1-3&keywords=a+new+paradigm+for+investing+by+william+nelson

The book listed is normally $9.99 but available but I am offering it for a lower price over the course of the next week. For most of the day today, the book is $3.99 which is 60% off. The price of the book will be gradually increasing during the course of that period.

I would like to thank my international viewers as well. I also wanted to especially thank some selected followers of my @NelsonThought and @LatticeworkWlth Twitter accounts (each of whom I would recommend following for the content and insight):

Followers on @NelsonThought:

The Wall Street Journal Wealth Report @WSJwealthreport – #wsjexperts

The Royce Funds @RoyceFunds

Research Magazine @Research_Mag

Barron’s Online @BarronsOnline

Vanguard FA @Vanguard_FA

Cleveland Fed Research @ClevFedResearch

Chloe Cho – @chloecnbc – CNBC Asia Anchor for Capital Connection show

Pedro da Costa @pdacosta – Central banking and economics reporter at The Wall Street Journal

Muriel Siebert & Co. @SiebertCo

Roger Wohlner, CFP® @rwohlner

Ed Moldaver @emoldaver

Sylvia Maxfield @sylviamaxfield – Dean of the Providence College of Business

The Shut Up Show @theshutupshow

Berni Xiong (shUNG) @BerniXiong

Followers on @LatticeworkWlth:

Euro-banks @EuroBanks

Direxion Alts @DirexionAlts

Charlie Wells @charliewwells – Editor at The Wall Street Journal

AbsoluteVerification @GIPStips

Investment Advisor @InvestAdvMag

Gary Oneil @GaryONeil2

MJ Gottlieb @MJGottlieb

Bob Burg @BobBurg

Melody Campbell @SmBizGuru

TheMichaelBrown @TheMichaelBrown

Phil Gerbyshak @PhilGerbyshak

MuniCredit @MuniCredit

D.J. Rob-Ski @DJRobSki

Latticework Wealth Management, LLC

~ Information for Individual Investors

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Book Promotion on Amazon.com – A New Paradigm for Investing: Can Your Financial Advisor Answer These Questions?

Book Promotion on Amazon.com – A New Paradigm for Investing: Can Your Financial Advisor Answer These Questions?

Is There a Way to Discern Whether or Not a Prospective Financial Advisor Will Provide You with Top-Notch Service? Short Answer is Yes.

What is the 800-Pound Gorilla in the Room for Retirees? It is 12.5.

A New Paradigm for Investing: Can Your Financial Advisor Answer These Questions?