The following is in response to Bob Veres’ article, Comparing Advisors to Jim Cramer: Measuring your Professional Alpha , which appeared on February 5:
Dear Editor,
My compliments to Bob for his article, which summarized how advisors add value. He did an excellent job of summarizing and quantifying the value-adds that advisors bring, and I am sharing it with my clients.
Bob noted:
- A steady hand in volatile markets
- Fully diversified portfolios
- Regular rebalancing
- Tax awareness
I would add risk management to this mix, though this may be embedded in each of the factors Bob cited.
Again, great work.
Robert J. Martorana, CFA, Portfolio Manager
Right Blend Investing, LLC
Hillsborough, NJ
The following is in response to Robert Huebscher’s article, Five Ways to Improve Your Investing Decision Making, which appeared last week:
Dear Editor,
What prompted me to write this was the section subtitled "A CFA may not matter" in this article that I found otherwise very informative. In our firm, all five advisors, and thus all members of the investment committee, have either the CFA or CFP designation.
I have never witnessed a situation, as Mr. Kaye described, where a CFA has a low regard to what a planner has to say. (I hold both certificates, so I would be dismissive of myself were I to act that way.) Of particular interest was Mr. Cassaday's statement that "the curriculum is not relevant to a portfolio of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds." I would challenge anyone in the industry to achieve the CFA designation before calling the curriculum irrelevant. While not all of our clients understand what the CFA is or what it takes to achieve that designation, I believe it helps us to be better advisors.
Please keep up the good work.
Sincerely,
Kevin S. McGrew, CPA/PFS, CFA, CFP®
President
Wealth Management Advisors, Inc.
Leawood, Kansas
