As interest in cryptocurrencies grows,1 many clients are seeking guidance from their financial advisors. But in an ever-evolving regulatory environment, and amid crypto’s recent crash, it can be hard for advisors to know what advice to offer that protects clients and fulfills their fiduciary responsibilities. READ MORE

Written by the SCA team and published in Advisor Perspective.

As the blockchain ecosystem develops and new cryptocurrencies spawn, investors are attempting to diversify their holdings to effectively capture the crypto market. After investors determine how much of their portfolios they want to dedicate to cryptocurrencies, a question soon follows: Which cryptocurrencies should constitute those holdings?

At the 2022 Morningstar Investment Conference in May, Karla Paxton hosted a panel called “Why Aren’t More Women Talking About Crypto?”

Paxton, a senior vice president of business development at Morningstar, is an individual cryptocurrency investor. She sat down with Morningstar experts [including] Jasmin Sethi, associate director of policy research. READ MORE

A fixed annuity also known as a MYGA can be a smart investment choice for those looking to diversify their portfolios while earning higher than bank deposit rates.

Investing in cryptocurrency comes with many risks. While some risks, like extreme price volatility, have become well-known and well-understood by the general public, others remain obscure and leave retail investors potentially vulnerable. From June 2020 to June 2021, 13% of Americans purchased or traded cryptocurrencies, according to a University of Chicago survey.

The paradox brought about by digital trading platforms is that digital nudges, also called behavioral prompts, have the potential to both aid and hinder investors. Nudges can positively influence investors by encouraging behaviors--like saving--that benefit investors and serve their personal goals.

In addition to the robo-advisors discussed in Part I and Part II of our series, traditional investment companies, including Goldman Sachs, Vanguard, Schwab, and Merrill have developed their own robo-advisory services.

Customer Relationship Summaries, also known as Form CRS, are a key accompaniment to the SEC’s Regulation Best Interest, or Reg BI, which governs the standard of conduct for broker/dealers. As of last year, broker/dealers, Registered Investment Advisors, and dually registered firms must provide each client, or prospective client, with the firm’s Form CRS.

In this piece, I review three additional robos: Albert, Ellevest, and Stash. Overall, each of these robo-advisors provide a distinct experience with the objective of helping individuals in different circumstances save for retirement (and other goals, but we focus primarily on retirement here) through a streamlined and convenient process.

Those who do not have the workplace infrastructure to help save for retirement can benefit from digital advice.

Last November, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule that could pave the way for these platform workers—commonly known as gig workers—to receive equity compensation just like employees and other categories of independent contractors.

Robo advisers can be very practical and efficient for investors. While robos generally are beneficial as they often invest in low-cost funds and ETFs, ideally, they should also include quality single-premium immediate annuities (SPIAs) and deferred-income annuities (DIAs) to simplify investment planning and allow retirees to spend more.

Retirees are often faced with the fear of outliving their assets. This fear, also known as longevity risk, has been eased by the availability of annuities, specifically annuities that I’ve termed in my paper as guaranteed income products, or GIPs, that offer fixed payments until death.

Congress has been devoting a lot more attention to annuities lately--and with good reason. As discussed in a recent Morningstar paper, some annuities that we call GIPs, or guaranteed income products, fill a role that is sorely lacking in the retirement investment catalog: They supplement Social Security by providing stable streams of income during retirement.

While political commentators can debate whether the administration is centrist or leftist, the important question for those concerned about policy over politics is what is the most effective and practically feasible way to solve many of the social and economic problems causing and resulting from the tremendous amount of inequality in the US. In some areas, a public option has been suggested as the solution.

In this article, we’ll walk through how regulation can be one of three things for a company’s business: an opportunity; an obstacle; or a risk.

We believe that some policy ramifications of the GameStop/Robinhood uproar are likely. Here's a look at some of the possibilities and trade-offs.

Although they remain drastically underused as a retirement income tool, annuities have the potential to provide important benefits to retirees. High-quality products that guarantee an income stream can greatly improve the stability of people’s retirement by disbursing steady payments over the course of their lifetime. READ MORE