The Trends That Will Matter to Advisors in 2024

Bob Veres’Tis the season when we read all sorts of predictions about the future, most notably the year ahead, often about what the markets will do, how interest rates will shift up or down, and whether inflation will trend. The people making those predictions over such a short (one-year) time frame ought to be forced to wear wizard’s hats and be photographed staring at the entrails of sacrificed animals or gazing into murky crystal balls. Everyone would know that those soothsayers and necromancers in business suits were engaging in something other than science.

Worse, very seldom are those bold (reckless?) predictors-of-the-future ever held accountable. Who goes back to see where the pundit said, last year at this time, that the market was about to crash any minute now and we should be storing canned food, guns and Krugerrand coins under the floor of a remote retreat – and made the same forecast for the past five years?

With these caveats in mind, I’m going to predict the future. Not the coming year. Not the markets. But to outline the trends that will emerge in 2024 and will shape the future, which advisory firms can prepare for now so that the strong, gusty winds of change will howl at their backs instead of in their faces.

In the spirit of accountability, let me review what I’ve predicted before.