This is the story of the implications of fiduciary best interest dying at the SEC.
The world watched Iowa Republicans – the party of Lincoln – give a big boost to Donald Trump Monday night, January 15.
A decade ago, fiduciary opponents sought to weaken fiduciary advice. Today, they have embraced a more ambitious objective – to eliminate fiduciary advice.
The conflicts of interest facing independent advisors are far fewer, less complex, more transparent and better understood by retirement investors. This is what opponents of the DOL rule won’t acknowledge.
Fiduciary duties are either unneeded or harmful, according to the opponents of the DOL rule. In their view, the finance and insurance industries have already achieved perfection.
Fiduciary September just concluded. To generate further awareness, my organization, the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard, produced eight panels with 22 speakers.
On August 25, Massachusetts’ highest court shocked the investment world by unanimously ruling against Robinhood and for the state’s fiduciary rule. Robinhood must change its ways to remain in business.
On May 3, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments on whether Massachusetts citizens will get a state-level fiduciary rule. The Fiduciary Institute submitted an amicus brief that said, emphatically, “Yes!” This is why.
April is Financial Literacy month, but all that elicits from the advice industry is a collective yawn.
The importance of Biden’s veto to save the DOL rule was not about assessing ESG factors. It was about affirming the role of the fiduciary in investment advice.
Given that $26 billion will be spent this year on Valentine’s Day, imagine if RIAs spent a tiny fraction of that to explain fiduciary relationships to the public.
Investors need body cameras. The horrifying images of five police officers beating Tyre Nichols were possible only because of the transparency of police body cameras. Words cannot do justice to what happened to Nichols, but they offer a lesson for the need for transparency in the regulation of advice.
Southwest Airlines cancelled 16,000 holiday flights. It will cost the airline dearly in reputational rage and lawsuits. Will massive Reg BI compliance failures cost BDs?
The SEC’s 2022 actions on fiduciary care are a reminder why a “real fiduciary” standard will only thrive if advisors and planners make it so. Regulators cannot. It’s is not their job.
The political news culture that favors words over deeds, clicks over content and headlines over discussion effects fiduciary care. We are at a low ebb.
Reg BI is the most divisive issue in the fiduciary discussion and was a focus of the discussion during September’s event.
The classical notion of 1940 investment advice has been hijacked and replaced by the SEC with a weak, distant cousin.
The Supreme Court’s decisions on abortion and gun safety reinforced how ideology polarizes politics and prevents civil discussion and progress. Market ideology has also polarized discussion and harmed advice standards.
Reg BI turns two on June 30th. It was supposed to help investors better understand how advisors and brokers differ and have BDs meet a “best interest” standard based on fiduciary principles. It turns out that Reg BI is doing the opposite.
Memorial Day deserves the great recognition it gets. Remembering the service of those who died for our country is a civic duty. This includes remembering, doing and acting in a manner that there is no doubt the character of military and finance leaders must be first.
The SEC staff thinks that fiduciary care is irrelevant. It has no more value to consumers investing retirement funds than it does when they buy clothes.
The SEC staff has issued a statement saying to investment advisers that their fiduciary status is “extraneous.”
On March 1, two unrelated Securities & Exchange Commission actions set out the state of its thinking on enforcing the “best interest” and “fiduciary” standards.
Here’s rough justice: FINRA’s February 9 disgraceful report on broker-dealer breaches of Reg BI came out just as the Winter Olympics was tarnished by the politics of the IOC.
The SEC’s form CRS fails consumers. CRS, meant to inform the public about BDs and RIAs, instead confuses everyone.
Last week’s off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey, Buffalo and Minneapolis bodes big trouble for the Biden administration. But overlooked was a report from state securities administrators stating, frankly, the opposite. The “states” supported administration efforts to strengthen the regulation of broker-dealers.
A new entrant in the battle to defeat distrust may surprise many: the U.S. Supreme Court. Three justices’ recent remarks offer a model for financial leaders.
Fiduciary, from the Latin fiducia, means trust. In this article, I contemplate the promise of a new paradigm for earning investor trust.
Form CRS is under greater SEC scrutiny by the Biden administration. How advisors and broker-dealer representatives are compared matters. A review of a few major firms’ CRS is illustrative.
The SEC has a unique opportunity to redo form CRS to help investors and investment professionals better understand how broker-dealers and investment advisers differ.
Should investors know that brokers are not advisors to customers?