Displaying items by tag: advisors

Social media can be a goldmine for financial advisors with a plan and system to consistently create content. However, it can also be a curse for advisors who don’t represent their practices properly or spend time and resources ineffectually.

In theory, social media gives an advisor the ability to reach thousands of users on various platforms, many of whom may be in the market for a financial advisor. It can also help you target prospects in your niche and customize content accordingly. For SmartAsset, Rebecca Lake CEFP shares some additional tips on effective content creation for social media.

The first goal is to create brand awareness through a presence on social media. This is the first step in the journey from gaining a social media follower, converting them to a prospect, and eventually a client. The next step is to use interactions on social media to build a following and deepen connections with existing clients and prospects. One strategy to do so is to run polls and ask questions of your followers to gain a deeper understanding of their perspective on various matters and spark thought and conversation.

Another important step is to do some research in order to understand where your ideal client spends time on social media. For instance, an advisor targeting younger clients may have better results on Tiktok or Instagram whereas a client targeting older clients would have more success on Facebook. 

Finsum: Social media is increasingly how advisors connect and communicate with clients and prospects. Here are some tips to increase your odds of success. 

Financial advisors have been leaving Merril Lynch at a steady clip over the past couple of years in search of greener pastures. Recently, David B. Ammerman and Sara E. Graham, who managed $353 million in client assets, left the firm to join Raymond James’ independent advisors division. He was ranked as the #37th best wealth advisor by Forbes this year and had been with Merrill Lynch since 1998.

Similarly, William Edward ‘Ed’ Winegar and Gregory W. Berg also left Merrill Lynch to join LPL’s employee brokerage unit two weeks ago. They are naming their new practice, Winegar Berg Wealth Management. The duo managed $205 million in client assets and generated $1.6 million in revenue last year. Both had been with Merrill Lynch since 2005.

This continues a trend of Merrill brokers leaving for Linsco which is LPL’s employee advisor channel. LPL continues to grow at an impressive rate, in part due to several affiliate options it offers for prospective advisors. Last month, it added about $800 million in client assets from Merril. Currently, LPL has 22,000 advisors, and it continues to take advisor and market share away from big banks and legacy providers of financial advice.  

Finsum: Merrill Lynch continues to see brokers leaving the firm. One of the firms seeing an influx of advisors is LPL which has a variety of offerings.

For Investment Week, Sarang Kulkarni, the Lead Portfolio Manager of the Vanguard Global Credit Bond Fund, shared some thoughts about active fixed income and the current state of markets. Overall, his goal is to identify and invest in the best credit opportunities to generate consistent, risk-adjusted returns over the long-term. He is agnostic in terms of geography, sector, duration, credit quality. Instead, the fund has a bottom-up approach with a bias towards value. 

Recently, the fund has been investing in European financials due to favorable valuations and an improving regulatory environment. Additionally, it sees improving credit trends in the consumer discretionary sector and believes there’s upside in the bonds of companies in this sector. 

In terms of its edge over other active managers, Kulkarni believes that other funds rely on betting on the direction of the bond market to ‘generate alpha’. Over the long-term, these strategies tend to underperform the benchmarks and can perform poorly in more volatile environments. 

In contrast, Vanguard seeks to generate alpha over an entire market cycle in a transparent way. It avoids beta even at the expense of short-term returns. The fund also seeks to replicate the risk-return profile of the asset class which is key to consistent, long-term performance.

Finsum: Sarang Kulkarni, the Lead Portfolio Manager of the Vanguard Global Credit Fund, shares some thoughts on active fixed income and what makes his fund unique relative to its competitors. 

The landscape for financial advisors has shifted rapidly over the last decades. And, these shifts are only accelerating in terms of frequency and impact. Thus, advisors also need to update their strategy and approach to thrive in this new environment.

A major change is that advisors have to work harder to get and keep clients, especially given that many other money managers are likely competing for clients' resources, time, and attention as well. 

For Financial Planning, John Guthery discusses why advisors should start embracing model portfolios to align their business with this new environment. Increasingly, the most value that an advisor brings is through quality time spent communicating with their clients to understand their needs and plan appropriately. This is true for both parties. 

Too many advisors are spending too much time managing portfolios and researching investment ideas, when they could instead be focused on tasks that will actually grow their business. Most long-term research shows that advisors fail to beat the market over long periods of time.

With model portfolios, this function is effectively outsourced so that advisors can spend more time on the tasks that actually move the needle in terms of building and operating a thriving practice. 

Finsum: Financial advisors tend to feel like they are not spending enough time with clients. Model portfolios are one solution as it frees up time for advisors.

Active fixed income ETFs are seeing strong inflows and a slew of new launches to capitalize on its increasing popularity. Some major drivers of demand are growing awareness and comfort from advisors and institutions, elevated yields, and outperformance on longer timeframes.

In addition to these secular drivers of demand, the asset class is benefitting from the current uncertainty around the economy and Fed policy. Active managers have more discretion in terms of duration and quality when selecting securities. This creates more alpha especially in a sideways market. 

The latest entrant in the active fixed income ETF space is Madison Investments which just launched the Madison Aggregate Bond ETF which invests in all types of bonds to generate superior long-term risk-adjusted performance. It believes that the fund will have lower risk than benchmarks in addition to income through risk-conscious investing. 

The ETF has an expense ratio of 0.40% and marks its third ETF launch and first fixed income ETF. It will be co-managed by Mike Sanders, the Head of Fixed Income, and Allen Olson, Portfolio Manager. The fund will hold between 100 and 500 securities with up to 10% in non-investment grade credit. Currently, it has an average duration of 6.3 years.

Finsum: Madison Investments launched the Madison Aggregate Bond ETF which is an active ETF that aims to have lower risk than benchmarks.