This April, the Department of Labor issued its new fiduciary rule, which will require any advisor giving advice to retirement account holders to act in the client’s best interest. It certainly sounds like an obvious improvement, and we’re pleased to see some forward progress on this notion of a more global fiduciary standard. Remember, Hill Investment Group has been acting in the capacity of a fiduciary for our clients since the founding of our firm.

Nevertheless, we’re not all that hopeful to see newly minted fiduciaries taking on the title anywhere near its fullest extent. Their clients may be scratching their heads since surveys indicate that many already thought they had a fiduciary commitment from their advisor. In reality, they’ve been subjected to the suitability standard. It’s is far more common and gives a wide berth to advisors when defining what might be best suited for a particular client (think of high cost, proprietary, commission-based products).

Interested in additional reading on this topic?

• “What New Rules on Retirement Savings Mean for Investors” in The New York Times
• “Fiduciary Rule Better Protects Investor Interests” from Morningstar

The benefits of Taking the long view manifest themselves in different ways for each new client of ours, but the overall story is similar every time. Things just seem more simple and transparent after we’ve had a chance to build an investment plan grounded in our evidence-based philosophy. We designed some visuals like the one below to help share the story. Visit the new Process page on our website to see for yourself.

As longtime followers know, I’m a fan of baseball and Michael Lewis. When he first published Moneyball in 2003, it was a match made in heaven. Dialing the clock forward to 2016, Jeff Luhnow, General Manager of the Houston Astros and former head of Player Development for the St. Louis Cardinals, is one of baseball’s best practitioners of Moneyball ideology…embracing the data and statistics of player performance to build a winning team rather than hoopla, emotion, and gut feel. I asked Jeff to read Odds On to get his take. His quote appears on the book itself:

“I picked up Odds On and couldn’t put it down. Matt Hall is a great storyteller, and his discoveries about how to build real wealth in the overwhelming world of finance make common sense. The sports world has been changing rapidly due to better information, and now I know the same revolution has been taking place in the investment arena.”