Individual Investors Have the Edge
Written by Michael L. Weiss
With the collapse of Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and now Merrill Lynch and Lehman, trust in traditional investment firms has been shaken. A recent study shows investors shifting to small boutique financial asset management firms to minimize risk.
"Out of every crisis, an opportunity is born," says Michael Weiss, CEO of Frontier Financial Advisors. "Investors are moving their accounts from the large brokerage firms and banks to boutique financial asset management firms."
NEW YORK, Wednesday, September 17, 2008 /PRNewswire/
With the collapse of Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and now Merrill Lynch and Lehman, trust in traditional investment firms has been shaken. A recent study shows investors shifting to small boutique financial asset management firms to minimize risk.
"Out of every crisis, an opportunity is born," says Michael Weiss, CEO of Frontier Financial Advisors. "Investors are moving their accounts from the large brokerage firms and banks to boutique financial asset management firms."
Over the last six months, an overwhelming majority of independent investment advisors have signed up discontented former brokerage firm clients, according to a study released in August by Schwab Institution.
Schwab’s semi-annual "Independent Advisor Outlook Study" for 2008 reports affluent investors turning to independent advisors and away from full-service financial asset management firms.
Rydex found the average RIA increased their client base by 7 percent in 2007, according to Rydex’s Advisor Benchmarking survey of 1,020 RIA firms. As a result, average RIA assets and net profits also hit all-time highs.
Meanwhile, news on Wall Street is grim. For the second time in 2008, investors' assets have been frozen. In the week of February 11, 2008, the $330 billion dollar "Auction Rate Securities" market seemed to collapse overnight.
"Three factors led to the collapse and takeover of the country's oldest financial institutions," says Weiss. "First, greed and irresponsibility. Second, complex investment vehicles. Third, the problem of 'too:' too many conflicts of interest, too many egos and too much investor money piled into these financial asset management firms.
"The risk in the large financial asset management institutions has been increasing for years because the size of the firms pushed them to take more risk to increase earnings, at the expense of their customers.
"For the first time in years, the small boutique asset management firms are better positioned than the larger firms to serve the individual investor," said Weiss.
About Frontier Financial Advisors
One of Wall Street’s leading boutique financial asset management firms, Frontier Financial Advisors provides individual investors with investment strategies and technologies previously available only to the very wealthy. Based on Mark Minervini's Specific Entry Point Analysis (SEPA), Frontier's investment philosophy minimizes risk and protects client capital by positioning portfolios in the best growth stocks the market has to offer, typically before the big firms move in.
Their free e-book exposes 12 investment mistakes: nnhttp://www.wallstreetfrontier.comn n
Article author
About the Author
After nearly two decades in the industry, Michael is still innovating in the arena of high net worth investing. His investment products and enterprises have included the Reflection Portfolio, an independently managed discretionary investment fund program for high net worth individuals which he successfully ran for six years, and GreenTrak, a ground-breaking financial performance reporting company that was the first to offer investors the ability to review their accounts on a consolidated and individual account basis. By the time GreenTrak was sold to a public company, it was monitoring performance and preparing tax information for over $25 billion in assets and counted some of the best known financial companies as its clients, including Merrill Lynch, Chase Bank, UBS and Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, as well as some of the largest US accounting firms. In addition to his own enterprises, Michael has served as senior vice president at such established financial institutions as PaineWebber, S.G. Cowen & Company and CIBC Oppenheimer & Company.
As CEO of Frontier Financial, Michael continues to invent alternative strategies for money management. In choosing to create Frontier as a small, exclusive firm, Michael has focused sharply on the needs and concerns of investors, rather than solely on expanding the amount of assets under management. Michael is also Chief Investment Officer for Weiss Capital Group II, LLC, which is general partner of two US-based hedge funds.
When he's not busy thinking about smarter approaches to investment, Michael can be found paying it forward. Michael has had some great sports, business and life coaches and believes in volunteering his time and sharing his experiences to help others. He lives in New York City with his wife, Leslie, and their golden doodle, Callie. Michael holds a B.A. in economics from Union College.
Examinations:
NASD Series 24 - General Securities Principal (June 2003)
NASD Series 7 - General Securities Representative (December 1987)
NASD Series 65 - Investment Adviser (February 2005)
NASD Series 63 - Uniform Securities Agent State (December 1987)
Life and Health Insurance License (July 2003)
Education:
B.A. Economics, 1986, Union College
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