She's back this week with a guest blog on Wealthfront.com where she discusses her support for a fiduciary standard that protects both consumers investments and their choices. The entire piece is worth reading. As the excerpt below illustrates, the piece drills down to a key difference between the DOL proposal and one being talked about at SEC.
Many investors prefer to pay for investment recommendations through commissions on a transaction-by-transaction basis. Others simply can’t afford or don’t have sufficient assets to justify the higher and/or ongoing fees that often accompany comprehensive financial planning or on-going portfolio management. For these investors, the SEC proposal offers the best of both worlds. It preserves the ability of brokers to charge commissions and offer transaction-based recommendations, but it requires them to disclose and – even more important – appropriately manage those conflicts of interest. And it requires them to make recommendations that put the customer’s interests first.
