1. How to Prepare for the Huge Wave of Peak 65 Retirees Coming in ‘24
Boomers are hitting retirement age and preparing to live out their retirement dreams. It’s been a slow-motion demographic tidal wave. Here at Lincoln Financial Group, it’s been Annuity Awareness Month every day for a long time. Preparing for this surge has been a priority for our business for the past few decades. — Tim Seifert
2. Why Do Mega-Cap Stocks Continue To Dominate?
Mega-cap stocks continue to dominate the market in 2023. The question is, why? After all, many other great companies have arguably much better valuations and fundamentals. Yet, those companies continue to lag the market’s overall returns as the bifurcation between the Mega-cap companies and everything else widens. The chat below clarifies the problem, which compares the market-capitalization weighted index to the equal-weight. — Lance Roberts
3. Making M&A a Win/Win
Too often in our industry we evaluate the purchase and sale of advisory practices through a zero-sum lens. When RIA Firm A sold to Investment Bank B, A was the winner because B lost many of the legacy advisors and therefore overpaid for the property. — Matt Regan
4. How To Become a Center of Influence
Accountants and attorneys are often considered centers of influence (COI) in the local community. Financial advisors and others cultivate them. Others are less obvious but fill the same role. Leaders of religious congregations are one example. Barbers and hairdressers are another. They are often the subject of jokes like “My barber told me to buy this stock…” yet often jokes and stereotypes are based in truth. How do you become a center of influence? — Bryce Sanders
5. How Advisors Can Myth-Bust Annuities for Clients
Don’t call it a comeback because they didn’t go anywhere, but annuities are commanding renewed attention among advisors and clients alike. As advisors know, annuities are products that offer guaranteed lifetime income for clients. Alone that’s appealing, but amid rising interest rates, annuities’ payouts are as high today as they’ve been in years, representing another potential perk for clients. — Todd Shriber
6. The Right Technology Allows Advisors to Focus on What Matters – Their Clients
Advisor productivity has been on a steady decline, through no fault of the advisors, but instead due to manual operations, a lack of integration across outdated systems and disconnected data. According to Capgemini, it is estimated that advisors dedicate 67% of their time on non-revenue generating, non-client facing, activity. — Alessandro Tonchia
7. How Much More Should the Young Transfer to Richer Older Generations?
Older Americans “splurging on travel and dining,” younger consumers “spending more on basics,” and a “growing generational gap”—that’s how a recent Washington Post article by Asha Bhattarai began a summary of a recent Bank of America (BOA) study. The Post article gave some examples, such as a middle-aged worker whose immediate family cut back on travel while his parents went on two cruises a year. — Eugene Steuerle
8. RIAs Transforming Uninsured and Underperforming Cash Into Organic Growth
In the world of finance, change is the only constant. The landscape continually evolves, presenting new challenges and opportunities for Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) to explore. As the financial markets become increasingly competitive and unpredictable, a new avenue for organic growth has emerged, capturing the attention of advisors with clients sitting on vast sums of uninsured or low-earning cash. — StoneCastle Cash Management
9. Is Nvidia About To Crash 90%?
Nvidia (NVDA) is the stock of a lifetime. It’s surged 500%+ since I recommended it to RiskHedge readers back in 2018. And it just printed the best earnings results I’ve ever seen. I’ll tell my grandkids about how I was alive to see these numbers. But its stock has tripled since January. And investors are asking: Is it time to take profits? — Stephen McBride
10. The Top Ten Themes of a Remarkable Summer
The Economy: Solid U.S. economic growth was the big summer surprise, driving interest rates higher. A soft landing is possible in the U.S. but an ominous slowdown is underway in China, with economic growth sagging in Germany and most of Europe. — Greg Valliere
11. What’s Behind Soaring College Costs and What You Can Do
Since I first wrote on the increasing cost of a college education in 2011, has anything changed? The short answer is “no.” The cumulative increase in college tuition has been much higher than the cumulative increase in inflation over the past 40 years. Between 1980 and 2020, inflation rose 95% while the cost of an average college education rose 148%. A four-year degree that cost $50,000 in 1980 would cost $124,000 now. — Rick Kahler