Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” – this week’s edition kicks off with new research showing that average asset-based advisory fees increased from 2020 to 2021, suggesting that the phenomenon of “fee compression” from low-cost competition like robo-advisors not only is failing to play out, but may be entirely reversing itself as human advisors create even more value on top of their portfolio management services by offering more and deeper services (and justify charging the same or even higher fees).
Also in industry news this week:
- Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin is pushing broker-dealers and RIA custodians to increase the interest rates paid on cash sweep accounts in response to the Federal Reserve’s recent rate hike
- Despite the popularity of the idea of replacing twice-per-year time changes with a permanent daylight savings time, many sleep scientists believe that such a change could be even worse for our bodies than the current system
From there, we have several articles on retirement planning:
- How part-time retirement programs from employers are increasingly available, and how advisors can support clients interested in a phased retirement
- How Social Security claiming strategies are becoming more important amid a wave of pandemic-related retirements
- Why a 401(k) ‘bridge’ could be a useful strategy for retirees to cover their expenses while delaying Social Security and allowing their benefits to grow
We also have a number of articles on advisor training:
- How firms can design training programs that employees will actually implement in their daily work
- What goes into effective advisory firm training programs for junior employees, and why consistency is one of the most important elements
- How external training programs provide structure and fresh ideas that are more difficult to generate through internal firm training programs
We wrap up with three final articles, all about the way we set and perceive our expectations for the future:
- How even the most optimistic predictions sometimes underestimate the eventual outcome of a situation (or vice versa in negative situations), since our tendency to think in linear terms undershoots exponential events
- Why people often feel emptiness when they achieve a long-awaited goal, and how focusing on progress towards that goal (and when achieving a goal, setting a new one that can be progressed towards) can lead to greater happiness in the long run
- Why setting reasonable expectations is key to maintaining happiness (especially when working toward ambitious goals with a low probability of success)
Enjoy the ‘light’ reading!
Leave a Reply