Sometimes you can’t shake a story because it keeps getting replayed in different forms. You might remember a piece in the NYT written a couple of years ago about a woman who stumbled upon gross misuse of her parent’s retirement money. Her parents’ brokers were mishandling the money for years, to their benefit – one stock had even been sold eight times in the same day, racking up enormous trading fees. It sounds shocking, but unfortunately, it’s an old story that bears repeating. Why? Sometimes we need reminding – employing a fiduciary advisor matters. “Fiduciary” means your advisor is legally bound to work in your best interest. Ask if your broker, or your parent’s broker, is held to this standard. Do you have a fiduciary advisor like Hill Investment Group?

If you’ve been hunting around our website recently, you might have noticed a link to our Client Relationship Summary (Form CRS).  This new regulatory document helps investors answer the question, “Is Hill Investment Group the right investment advisor for me?” It’s aimed at anyone who is curious how we can help. 

In our opinion, it’s a great move by regulators. It makes important information about advisors and broker-dealers crystal-clear, like fees, services, disciplinary information, and their fiduciary obligation (audio clip). As an existing or prospective client, we encourage you to check it out. You might learn something about us you didn’t know before, maybe even ways in which we can be more helpful to you!

For the third year in a row, Schwab Institutional is running a series of TV commercials in support of independent Registered Investment Advisor firms. That’s us! The commercials are an extension of Schwab’s long-running advertising campaign, focused on helping the public understand why terms like “independent,” “fiduciary,” and “Registered Investment Advisor” matter – or at least should matter – to anyone seeking solid financial advice.

You can see the TV ads now through mid-May on CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg TV and Golf Channel. They stand out to us for their emphasis on the right kinds of questions to ask when assessing a financial advisor. While most financial services advertising is aimed at products and sales, we’d say Schwab gets it right. Here’s our favorite:

Schwab’s ad campaign is hardly the reason we do business with them. But it’s one more way their thinking aligns with ours, as we turn to them for holding our own, and our clients’ personal investments.