Here is our top 10 countdown of the most popular articles from the Larkspur-Rixtrema Blog for 2018:
10. How to facilitate a conversation about risk & obtain better portfolio outcomes for your clients. Prior to becoming the CEO of RiXtrema, I was an asset manager, and soon after RiXtrema was founded, I became a client of the Riskostat software. My first implementation of the software was when I was the Chief Risk Officer for an outsourced CIO firm. Part of our mandate was managing a large defined benefit pension plan (DB Plan). We had two requirements for a manager to be considered on our platform for potential investment in the DB Plan…READ MORE
9. Ten Social Media Marketing Mistakes Financial Advisors Make and How to Avoid Them. More and more financial advisors are turning to social media marketing every day. More than 81% of financial advisors use social media for business purposes. 79% have acquired new clients directly through social media, with an average gain of $4.6 million AUM annually through their social media marketing campaigns. Such success also comes with a need to make sure certain mistakes are not made to stay a step ahead of the competition. Here are our top 10 mistakes and proposed solutions for social media marketing…READ MORE
8. 3 Advantages of Stress Testing vs. Traditional Risk Measures. Why do we need Stress Testing when we already have risk measures like Sharpe ratio, Beta, Value-at-Risk, Tracking Error, and Expected Shortfall? The problem with these measures is that they are completely backward-looking. A tracking error or a Sharpe ratio today has no clue that interest rates can actually rise by more than trivial amounts, since nothing of that kind was observed in the data sample used to calculate those metrics…READ MORE
7. How will the 2018 Midterm Elections Affect You as a Financial Advisor? The big news in the US this November, which was accurately predicted by virtually every reputable pollster and pundit who prognosticates about US elections, is that the 116th congress will bring a divided government with the Democrats controlling the House of Representatives and the Republicans controlling the Senate (and of course the Presidency which was not put to vote). The US stock market reacted positively to the news with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 each gaining more than 2% the day after the election, though, as of this writing, subsequent sessions have seen those gains eroded. But the real question is, what will happen over the next 2 years while the government is divided?…READ MORE
6. Analyzing Yield Curves to Position Your Clients’ Portfolios. The recent equity selloff has dropped S&P 500 10.2% from the September peak to its November 23 trough and removed about $2.5 Tn in market cap from the index. Similarly, the Nasdaq has fared worse with a 14.8% drop from its August peak while global markets have fared even worse, off more than 20% since highs in January 2018. These declines have investors wondering if this is a healthy correction or the ‘R’ word is lurking on the horizon…READ MORE
5. 6 Best Practices For Reaching a Busy Plan Sponsor. We at Larkspur-RiXtrema know how difficult it can be to keep up in the retirement plan space. There are so many wasteful plans out there, and it can seem easy to reach out to these plan sponsors to point out these flaws to them. However, even with powerful quantitative tools at your disposal, the plan sponsors might still be hesitant to take your call and listen. At Larkspur-RiXtrema, we have built our software, 401kFiduciaryOptimizer, to help you do just that, but we also know that there is a bit more to the process when it comes to reaching out to these plan sponsors. We’ve put together a few strategies to consider when getting in front of these companies and how to successfully reach out to a busy plan sponsor…READ MORE
4. How to Start (or start over) with Social Media Marketing as a financial advisor. Financial advisory clients are increasingly turning to social media to streamline, and even help manage, their investment portfolios. This leaves many advisors out in the cold if they have not jumped on the social media marketing bandwagon. So where does one start (or in some cases start over)and what should be your first steps? Here are some short suggestions, which should be the basis and starting point to a successful marketing campaign on social media...READ MORE
3. 8 Mistakes Advisors Can Make When Approaching a Retirement Plan. Many advisors automatically assume that financial planning expertise will translate into plan success. You need to actually learn the space and study governance best practices plus lingo to have any chance…READ MORE
2. Post DOL Fiduciary Rule Regulatory Challenges. The DOL Fiduciary Rule is dead. All we know is that something will replace it, someday. Maybe. As this article from InvestmentNews points out, that leaves advisors in a state of regulatory uncertainty. And given the recent market volatility, the article mentions an important point: that if your IRA Rollover clients experience a suboptimal outcome and second guess their rollover decisions, there could be additional risks to the advisor…READ MORE
1. What the Trump Executive Order on Retirement Means for Advisors and Plan Sponsors. President Trump with his Executive Order on Retirement plans expanded the horizons of better retirement to many people who before had no chance to retire comfortably and securely. It helps to close the gap between many employees working for small companies which do not have the ability to set up an internal retirement plan for their workforce. The mechanics of this new process allows a group of small firms to participate in the Multiple Employer Plan (MEP) to offer the opportunity for employees to save portions of the paycheck on their retirement accounts…READ MORE
