solutions that work

So announces this week’s Wealth Management.com. The headline refers to a new report from Boston Consulting Group that reveals both revenues and profits of the asset management industry have declined for the first year since the financial crisis. It turns out the culprit is passive investing. Active core investing, as high as 60% in 2003,

The spending habits of the U.S. consumer is changing as millennials enter the work force and their wallets grow. Purchases and gifting of experiences versus “things” is growing rapidly. Research by Eventbrite of millennials (defined by them as Americans born between 1980 to 1996, although definitions vary depending on the source) revealed that 78% of

U.S. Trust conducts an annual survey of high and ultra-high-net-worth Americans, targeting individuals with at least $3 million in investable assets. This year’s survey includes some interesting findings with regard to generational differences in portfolio allocations. The chart below shows the distribution of investments across broad asset classes for each generation. Notable is a dramatic

The Liar’s Box is the repository of market research findings that you know are false even though respondents declare them to be true. We recall a vivid example: In a market survey, avid skiers dismissed the importance of graphics on their skis. Research reported that the desirability of skis was all about the shape, size,

Anyone with a teenager or young adult in their family has probably at least heard of Venmo (a PayPal company), a person to person/peer to peer (P2P) payment network, where all you need is one simple piece of information such as a person’s email or cell phone number to initiate a payment. Venmo is the

This week Cetera Financial Group, one of the country’s largest independent broker-dealers, announced a pilot program for a new client profiling tool called Decipher. In the announcement, Decipher was described as a “unique, interactive technology that transforms the client discovery process, providing enhanced insights into client needs and concerns.” Decipher works by combining facial recognition

                    “If you don’t read past this first paragraph, remember just two things: You almost never move up a learning curve, only down. And the steeper the curve, the easier the learning.”      –Computerworld Magazine Thank you, Computerworld, for clarifying what a learning curve is all about.

This week, Morningstar released its annual U.S. Fund Fee Study. Findings show that, on average, investors in long-term mutual funds and ETFs last year paid lower fund expenses than ever before. As the chart below shows, average fund fees have been steadily dropping since 2000, hitting a record low average expense ratio in 2016 of