At the peak of tulip mania, in February 1637, some tulip bulbs sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled artisan. Some have theorized that outbreaks of bubonic plague throughout the period caused folks to take chances they would not have ordinarily taken. Sound familiar? During the current pandemic stock markets,…
The real future of financial advice – Rise of the Robots I attended an Amazon conference where the key note speaker declared (somewhat tongue in cheek) that “in the future all companies will be IT companies”. He pointed to Uber and Airbnb who are not much more than a computer program and the market capitalization…
Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google have a combined market capitalisation bigger than the GDP of most countries. If they believe “voice” is the future then it probably is. Most of us use their digital assistants. We ask Apple’s Siri to call mum, Amazon’s Alexa to turn on the lights, Microsoft’s Cortana for the day’s schedule…
Financial planners have used algorithms for ages. Financial planning software churns out advice documents, re-balancing algorithms keep asset mixes aligned to risk profiles and research software forms the basis of product recommendations. Why can’t we let clients access the software directly and reduce costs? Planning software is difficult to use and understand. Even financial planners…
The pandemic forced most advice firms into the safety of the “cloud” trying to keep their business alive. “Trying” quickly went to “thriving” and the Direxion Work From Home Survey found client relations and productivity were either unaffected or improved. Employees enjoyed the flexibility of working from home and owners could look at reducing the…
