client appreciation

Our Exorbitant Privilege

© Can Stock Photo / yanc

Financial firm founder Barry Ritholz says that the vast majority of people in the investment business spend most of their time chasing new business. Finding clients or trades consumes most days and a lot of nights—it is their main job.

Dialing the phone, putting on seminars, networking, joining boards, sending spam email…there are a lot of ways to meet people.

That Ritholz Wealth Management needs to do none of these things is what he calls “our exorbitant privilege.” We feel the same way.

My vision when I was forty was to find and retain a circle of clients who, if I took care of them, would take care of me. I did NOT want to wake up at sixty, needing to run up and down the highways to find a deal to pay my bills. The vision became reality.

You know our business objective is to strive to grow your buckets, and have them serve you as you need. The interesting paradox is that we have grown since we stopped looking for new business.

We frequently mention how important you are to the process. You saved the money to begin with, you share our philosophy of investing, you do the right thing even when it is difficult to do so. Clients may not be retaining nearly as much money if they routinely sold out in panic or insisted on buying into fads.

Now we have a better way to express our appreciation for you. It is our exorbitant privilege to serve you as we do.

Clients, if you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

All investing involves risk including loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss.

Straightforward Pricing

© Can Stock Photo / PixelsAway

We believe the investment results we manage are due in part to your sensible, effective investment behavior. You know we think you, our clients, are the best in the world.

Even though some people panic and sell out at low points, you realize this kind of behavior is optional. Many of you invest more when the market has declined. You and we share the belief that focus on the long term lets us seek to improve our long term results.

Effective the first of the year we revamped the pricing on the investment advisory accounts we manage for you in our capacity as investment advisory representatives of LPL Financial. Our object is to reward you for your role in our results.

So we put in a system of volume discounts based on account value, not original invested capital. And we instituted discounts for your persistency: costs decline after two years, and eight years, and sixteen years.

Here in the third month of the quarter, we are busy reviewing costs. Some of you will see fee reductions for the passage of time or an increase in the value of your household assets. Changes if any will take effect next quarter.

Year by year we strive to improve the quality of our research, the capacity of our trading desk, and the responsiveness of our service to you. These things are not free: our overhead tends to rise over time. But our business has grown and our productivity rises as we figure out better ways to do things.

Here is the schedule. After the eighth and sixteenth year, an additional discount of 0.05% will apply. Clients, if you have any questions about this or anything else, please email us or call.

pricing

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

All investing involves risk including loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss.