Fiduciary

Who can you trust to give you reliable investment advice? If you are like most people, you assume that the people who provide investment advice are required to act in your best interest. Unfortunately, that’s only true for some advisors – those who are fiduciaries.

Under financial laws and regulations, there are two sets of rules. One set is for people who sell financial products, generally brokers and insurance company representatives. These salespeople are contractually obligated to place the interests of their employer ahead of the interests of their clients.

The other set of rules is for those who are registered as investment advisers with the United States federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or comparable state regulators. Registered investment advisers like us are legally obligated to place your interests first. We are fiduciaries. That means we must not only be loyal to serving your exclusive best interests, we must also adhere to a high standard of professional competence.

Unlike other classic professions, such as law and medicine, anyone can call themselves an investment or financial advisor even if they are really a salesperson. Recent financial reform legislation is attempting to change this situation but there are powerful and well-funded financial service company lobbying organizations working overtime to protect the status quo.

We are part of a grassroots organization of financial service professionals known as the Committee for the Fiduciary Standard. The Committee’s goal is to educate legislators, regulators, and the investing public about the importance of protecting investors by extending the fiduciary standard to cover everyone who provides personalized investment advice. Interestingly, the Committee includes a number of brokers and insurance representatives, in addition to registered investment advisers, who recognize how important it is to investors and society at large for advice to be truly trustworthy based upon a uniform standard that requires advisors to be objective and competent.

We are not willing to wait for legislators and regulators to do the right thing and you shouldn’t be willing to wait either. The Committee has drafted the very straight-forward oath you will find by clicking the button below that commits an advisor to adhere to a fiduciary ethic and, in so doing, to be accountable for the advice the advisor renders to you, the client. We sign and commit to this oath every time we enter into an advisory relationship with a client. We strongly recommend that you insist that any advisor you hire is willing to sign this oath. The commitment is simple and clear. If they won’t sign the oath, you owe it to yourself to ask why you would trust your financial future to their care. We encourage you to share this webpage and the oath with your family and friends. Please call us if you would like more information about why it is so vitally important to work with a fiduciary when you seek financial advice. We would be delighted to discuss this subject with you further.

Please let us know if you have any questions about our fiduciary oath to you, our fee-only compensation, or any other aspect of our commitment to serving your investment needs in a clear, successful, and responsible manner. We look forward to speaking with you soon!