Enjoy the current installment of “weekend reading for financial planners” – this week’s edition kicks off with the announcement that Schwab is launching a new “Center of Excellence” that is intended to push forward internal innovation, including ways to better support “smaller” advisors with $25M to $100M of AUM that still form the bulk (70%+) of advisor assets but tend to get the least support due to their small individual size, in what may signal a broader shift of RIA custodians to put more resources to “downmarket” advisors in addition to competing for the small subset of the largest firms.
From there, we have a number of articles looking at broad industry trends, from an interesting look at the 50-year anniversary of a number of major independent broker-dealers (who all formed in 1968 as insurance company subsidiaries after a major court case and regulatory ruling required them to do so to continue offering early-stage variable annuities), to a discussion about the rising trend of private equity firms investing into broker-dealers, why perhaps it’s time to shift our current industry disclosure approach to providing more standardized data that third-party sites can better package for consumers (instead of regulators trying to design the ‘optimal’ disclosure), a discussion of how direct-to-consumer “Insurtech” providers are trying to disrupt life insurance companies the way online discount brokers disrupted the traditional stockbroker, and an interesting “call to action” to RIA custodians about what they need to improve to better support younger/newer advisory firms.
From there, we have a number of tax planning articles as well, including: pending guidance from the IRS that will affirm that meals do remain deductible even though entertainment expenses aren’t deductible anymore (even if the meal itself is tied to an entertainment event); how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is shifting the focus of estate planning away from estate taxes and towards income tax planning and asset protection instead; and what to watch out for if clients want to do a “temporary loan” to themselves using the IRA 60-day rollover rules.
We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of connecting better with others: the first delves into the research about how we actually form close friendships, and what it takes to speed the process of finding and establishing close friends; the second offers up some useful tips on how to better write persuasive emails that connect (and are less likely to be misunderstood); and the last explores the research on what it takes to be perceived as more charming, which as it turns out has little to do with being perceived as more competent and instead is driven almost entirely by being perceived as more “warm”, which means trying to be more welcoming to the other person who may be equally nervous about being perceived as charming themselves!
Enjoy the “light” reading!
source https://www.kitces.com/blog/weekend-reading-for-financial-planners-nov-3-4-2/
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