Monthly Archives: March 2012

HighTower Advisors, a Chicago based registered investment advisor, recently published a very clever whiteboard animation titled “Brokers vs. Fiduciaries.”  In the video, HighTower CEO Elliot Weissbluth describes brokers as cleaver wielding butchers.  The video implies that the butchers would be … Continue reading →

Stockbrokers are going extinct.  Wall Street hasn’t trained a real stockbroker in nearly twenty years. Today, stockbrokers have been replaced with “financial consultants” (or whatever they choose to call themselves) who do nothing more than gather clients’ assets, outsource the … Continue reading →

Hats off to Greg Smith, the Goldman Sachs executive who published his resignation from the firm in a New York Times Op-Ed this week.  In his piece, Mr. Smith highlighted a decline in Goldman’s culture, describing a firm that has … Continue reading →

The benefits of a well diversified investment portfolio can’t be overstated.  When properly executed, diversification becomes the shock absorber of a portfolio, greatly reducing the risk of investment losses.  But what many investors fail to recognize is that there is … Continue reading →

It’s universally accepted that lower investment management fees help lead to better long-term investment returns.  Despite this fact, most investors don’t have a clear understanding of the true cost of investment management services or what they are actually paying for.   … Continue reading →

Attached below is the Association of Independent Investors recent comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding their study of financial literacy among investors. The letter outlines several steps that the Commission can take to make investors better informed … Continue reading →