Advisor Transparency and Return-to-Office Mandates
Undercover Callers
Welcome to this week's News Brief, a roundup of some of Ignites' biggest stories of the week.
Staffers at the Government Accountability Office made undercover calls to 75 financial advisors?to understand how they communicate with investors. They found that some provided?incorrect information. The employees posed as 60-year-olds considering retirement. They asked more than two dozen advisors about changes to fiduciary protections if they were to move their 401(k) to an IRA, and about half incorrectly said that the rollover wouldn't result in any such changes, Ignites'?Beagan Wilcox Volz?reports. "I don't think [the advisors] are being totally transparent," a retirement industry watcher told Ignites.
In other news, Vanguard has chopped the minimum balance required for its fully digital robo advisor?to $100, from $3,000. Doing so will broaden investor access,?Brian Ponte?reports. It also makes the robo's minimum among the industry's lowest.?Betterment?and?Fidelity?Go have no minimum account balances.?Wealthfront, meanwhile, requires $500 and for?Schwab?Intelligent Portfolios, investors must have at least $5,000.
Also last week, AssetMark announced it had hired former State Street president Lou Maiuri?as its chief executive. He left State Street at the end of last year after more than a decade,?Daniel Gil?reports. A private-equity firm took AssetMark private about five months ago.
Return to Office Creep?
Nearly half of industry workers surveyed say their firms have introduced or updated their return-to-office mandates – and some of them are unhappy, a new Ignites Research report found. More than a quarter of respondents say that more in-office time may prompt them to leave their firms.?Melat Kassa?parses the?results.
Partner Content
Chart of the Week
Investors?pulled more than $5 billion?out of the nine?Western Asset?mutual funds managed by?Ken Leech, the shop's former co-investment chief, during the two weeks after he left the firm,?Morningstar Direct?data shows. That includes $3.1 billion from the $9.6 billion Western Asset Core Bond Fund,?Beagan Wilcox Volz?reports. Regulators are investigating Leech's trading activity.
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