Value in 60 Seconds: Fiduciary duty of care - what should you expect from your advisor? 14 July 2023

One of my favorite topics is the standard of care and fiduciary duty of care. If your advisor is not holding him or herself to the fiduciary standard, then they don't really have to act in your best interest. They got to do what's best for you right now. And guess what? That just ended. It's not a really high bar, whereas the fiduciary duty of care means they've got to really make sure that they only do what a prudent person would do. And to be candid, any advisor that knows about new constructs knows that it is a more reliable source of fundamental research. It's hard to make a straight-faced argument to clients that you're not using it. What are you going to say? I'm knowingly using information and fundamental analysis that ignores critical data in the footnotes, that's a tough sell. This potential change from the SEC is very healthy for markets. More and more investors need to understand exactly what responsibilities advisors have and what sort of modus operandi they're operating under.