Sunday, August 09, 2009
The Best Book We’ve Seen on 401(k)‘s
For those of us who meant to write a book which tells everything there is to know about 401(k) Fiduciary duties, well, Josh went ahead and did it. It came out last year to great fanfare, but we are still surprised at how many 401(k) plan sponsors still don’t “get it”.
Josh has briefly - but completely, provided a step by step guide to fulfilling these duties which, by the way, leads to a low cost, high performing plan you can be proud of. In addition, the book shows how to address the fiduciary liablity question in order to protect youself…it’s still a PERSONAL liability at the end of the day.
And he explains who the players are…this chapter alone is worth the price of the book. When you see who has a vested interest in what, it becomes clear where there can be conflicts of interest or worse.
For more information, you can visit Josh’s site: http://www.fixingthe401k.com/
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Make Wall Street Put Investors Best Interest First
We don’t usually go in for petitions, but we feel that this one is worth signing…and worth it for others, too.
At stake is whether investors will continue to be serviced by brokers who use a “suitability” standard, or Advisors, who are required by law to put their clients’ interest first.
There is a long list of abuses by FINRA supervised brokers, who can easily be tempted by certain products that pay a bigger commission, stocks or bonds which are recommended by a sales manager (‘Let’s put some lipstick on this pig”), trips to exotic places, account churning, and more. And, of course, there are a great many brokers who rise above this and provide exemplary advice/service by adopting a fiduciary standard even if they don’t have to.
But shouldn’t everyone do that? What kind of finacial system has two sets of rules like this?
In case you haven’t guessed, we are in favor of a Fiduciary Standard: the clients’ interest always come first. Period.
To see the petition and view a more in depth discussion of this subject, please go to: http://tinyurl.com/nsr97g
And thanks to our friends at fi360, the Center for Fiduciary Studies, for being pro-active on this matter
