Fiduciary

A recent study from Cerulli Associates indicates that registered investment advisors (RIA) are more than hesitant to recommend annuities to their clients.

The report surveys and compares the views of various forms of financial advisors.  Not surprisingly, financial advisors’ product views are tightly related to the financial incentives that support their business models.  Consider, for example, the following:

1. Only 7% of insurance company representatives would be reluctant to
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The first time I visited New York I was taken in a sidewalk shell-game within 45 minutes of being in the city—no kidding.  Shell games involve trying to guess where a card or any other item might reside after being shuffled among various covers by a dealer.

There are basically three reasons why I lost $40 within 45 minutes of arriving in NYC: 1) I was naïve; 2) I was overconfident in my card-spotting abilities, and; 3) there was a large amount of asymmetric information—in other words, the “dealers” (to use a polite term) had a heck of...

There is a key point of distinction that exists in the world of financial advice and vast majority of people are unaware that it exists. 

The defining issue is whether a...