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Digital Assets at an Inflection Point

Listen to the latest SIFMA Podcast on digital assets, tokenization, and the future of capital markets infrastructure.

The recent SIFMA (Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association) conference came back with a ton of report cards – one of which reminded how not so great we were doing with social media in our community.  I think I’m feeling sick!

As a financial advisor, it’s tough for me to hear that we’re not doing something well.  We pride ourselves on being knowledgeable in a lot of different…

In this edition of “401…k?”, we have a meaty topic that has been making waves in the world of personal finance. On January 13th, Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) chairman Jason Furman co-authored a memo with CEA member Betsey Stevenson detailing conflicts of interest between Americans saving for retirement and their financial advisers. This memo was “somehow” leaked to the public, spread through the financial blogosphere, and finally became an official report released by the White House today.

The report claims that “even a far more conservative estimate of the investment losses due to conflicted advice, such as half of a percentage point, would indicate annual losses of more than $8 billion.On the other hand, if conflicted advice affects a larger portion of IRA assets than the $1.7 trillion considered here—or if the estimate were extended to other forms of retirement savings—the total annual cost would exceed $17 billion”

The White Houses proposes that financial advisers of retirement savings accounts be mandated to act as fiduciaries and give advice to investors that is in the best interest of the investors, not the advisers.

According to Wall Street lobbyist group and suspected venereal disease, sifma, the proposed plan “would lead to a number of negative consequences for individual investors, including limiting investor choice, limiting investor access to education regarding retirement accounts, and increased costs for saving.”

The premise of this proposed rule is that advisers not acting in the interest of their investors is bad for investors. In theory, making such actions illegal would save American workers between eight and seventeen billion dollars a year.

This topic will soon be open for public debate and Americans will be forced to choose between advisers inundating them with tons of shitty mutual funds they don’t even understand and advisers begrudgingly making recommendations in the average American’s interest.

Let’s just hope that Jason Furman and Betsey Stevenson don’t get sifma before the decision is made.

Read the entire White House report, “The Effects of Conflicted Investment Advice on Retirement Savings”.