In this just-for-kicks episode, the host breaks down a few recent articles and happenings that impact wholesalers and advisors.
Advisor Hub article on Morgan Stanley Broker filing lawsuit
FiComm RIA Growth Youtube Series
Financial Advisor Influencers
In this just-for-kicks episode, the host breaks down a few recent articles and happenings that impact wholesalers and advisors.
Advisor Hub article on Morgan Stanley Broker filing lawsuit
FiComm RIA Growth Youtube Series
Financial Advisor Influencers
A reason for the cold today. John is Welcome to Internal Use Only. Something just came across my desk, john. It is perhaps the best thing I've seen in the last six months. If you have 60 seconds, I'd like to share the idea with you. Got a minute. A podcast for Wholesalers Always be closing, always be closing. Buy Wholesalers. Blue horseshoe loves anacostia. Okay, before we get started, I have one question. Is anyone here past the Series 7 exam? I have a Series 7 license. Good for you, you can get up to it. Let's cut to the chase. Here's your host, dan Sullivan. Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Internal Use Only podcast. My name is Dan Sullivan. I am your host.
Speaker 1:We typically do interviews for this show, so if you're new, continue to come back and check out all of our interviews with several different financial professionals, including Wholesalers, advisors and more. This episode will be a little bit different. I am waiting on some interviews to get approved, so in the meantime, I wanted to bring everybody and bring this audience some conversation fodder. So if you're a Wholesaler, or really anybody that's in sales, it's always helpful just to have a little bit of tidbits. Conversation starters, and I wanted to use the opportunity to talk about a couple of different current events, or really just news articles or briefings or any other anecdotes that I've come across over the past few weeks and share them with the audience, talk about my opinion on them, what I'm seeing, what would be useful, and maybe you can use these for their conversations yourself. So a lot of this information has been pulled from all of the sources that Wholesalers follow right Various industry blogs, wall Street Journal, other kind of postings. So hopefully this will just be something that's light, entertaining and interesting and I'll run through a few of these stories. So this will just be a short and quick episode for everybody.
Speaker 1:This week An Advisor Hub article came out that mentioned a former Morgan Stanley broker from an advisor team in the generally in North Jersey, with 17 years experience, had filed a gender discrimination suit against the wire house, claiming that it failed to protect her from harassment by male colleagues, and retaliated against her after she complained. So the TLDR of this was that there was an individual who claimed that their former partner suggested within the first three months of working together that they run a what is called Operation Honeypot, under which this particular employee and her friends would find attractive females or they would be attractive females going to events to well on behalf of this advisor's rich guy friends, using their looks to woo clients and to secure new business. So apparently this was happening between 2019 and 2020. Some of these complaints were formally made to Morgan Stanley or to management in 2021. And then, after which an internal investigation was launched which was at least by this individual, seem to be retaliatory. So a lot, definitely a lot, going on here.
Speaker 1:In this situation, I think what is curious, or from our perspective here, is we're just reviewing the article and seeing what was included in it is that if you were to, if you were to, go to the end of the article here as we scan down, you know, regardless of the status of the case and where this is and all the details something that I always have done and if you're out there calling on advisors, especially internals, always go back and check the broker check. It's very interesting to see what's on that broker check and, you know, sometimes you find some interesting things. So apparently there is a lot going on on the individuals broker check here. That's a part of this story, so check that out. There's definitely been some criminal charges there which may have been disputed, but again, all all unique things that are a part of this story. So definitely Feel free to give that one a read.
Speaker 1:I would also highlight that Michael Kitzies, who is one of the, I think, most followed and well-known financial planners out there you can find hundreds and thousands of resources on his work with advisors. He's someone who's well-known he took to the popular social media platform, linkedin over the weekend. In no other words, he basically posted the article, a couple snippets and his feedback. He just says what the fuck? And there's nothing else that he has to explain for this situation. He goes into a pretty lengthy post just about how there's no way that an industry who is trying to progress, who is trying to have better representation, how this type of behavior can be part of the workforce. It's a reason why women are leaving. So this is that's my summary of the post. Again, I'll link all this. Feel free to check it out. But those are interesting article. Unfortunate situation Obviously we hate when we see this happening. It's always interesting to check out the details and follow those along. So I'm sure there's going to be more on this or follow up, but that definitely came across by feed this weekend. For sure could see that being interesting as a read, not only for wholesalers out there, but something that you can maybe pass along as part of a news or a bit that you saw here, especially with any of those Morgan advisors. I'm sure they have stories that are either similar or rhyme within their local offices. That's just one that's isolated to the New York, new Jersey area.
Speaker 1:Moving on here into our next topic, something that I certainly appreciated as a wholesaler in the field, and that is just good content from portfolio managers about either specific stocks or just some of the larger trends when it comes to investing. So I came across a great video about the AI winners and this was from a former employer of mine, natixus, more specifically, the Loomis Sales Company. So if you know Loomis, you probably know a ton of their funds. Their portfolio manager and I'm going to butcher this name, just like I did every time I worked at the firm when I was introducing him Aziz Hamz oh my God, I get this wrong every time Aziz Hamzaglari, who is an excellent portfolio manager. He breaks down some of the mega trends that are happening in AI and talks about some of the disruptive forces. He talks about in NVIDIA as well. Obviously, that's one of the darling stocks right now, which is essentially putting the entirety of the market on its back. But it's a good breakdown of when they purchased NVIDIA after having a down quarter, why people underestimate impact of AI and then they'll overestimate who's going to do well. So really, overall good breakdown. It's like a seven minute video, one of those good ones. That's not long, it's pretty well done. So hats off to the team at Loomis for posting that Pretty good video. And I'm sure all of your firms have some kind of content like that. But maybe your firm doesn't and you want to just share that video to an advisor or someone who you maybe had a conversation with about AI. Really good one that you can that you can share over, all right.
Speaker 1:Moving on again to another topic that hits home for all wholesalers that are out there, and that's Fun Flows. So you all have heard episodes with Y-charts. I'm a big fan of Y-charts. They have some Fun Flows reporting easy to access that I thought would be interesting to report on. So, really to no surprise, money Markets continued. This is now January 2024 of Fun Flows. So if you're new to the industry, you know that the reporting on Fun Flows is typically delayed about a month, so the month closes. There's a period of time, usually a month, and then we get the information. So it's now early March, so we have reporting on everything through January. So Money Market Funds continued their stride from 2023, taking in $70.7 billion in inflows. So that is your champion again.
Speaker 1:And if you recall our conversation or maybe you didn't hear the interview but Dave Lubnick and I of Y-charts we talked about how a lot of sales leaders out there are mentioning that the biggest sales opportunity like a life, like a generational sales opportunity, is going to exist when all of that Money Market Fund sorry, money Market Funds all of those dollars rotate out of that asset class. So it's not going to be today. We don't know when that's going to happen, but if you're a retail sales professional, new money always comes from somewhere else, and it seems like the Money Market Funds. The more deposits and the more money keeps going into them, the better opportunity you're going to have to have an advisor convert that money from a Money Market Fund into whatever kind of fund that you're selling, whether it's equity, fixed income, alternatives, you name it. So other flows from January.
Speaker 1:Let's go through this. Let's check it out real fast. So we talked about Money Markets already. Don't need to be a dead horse on that. Large value outflows about 7.3 billion and large growth inflows I don't think anyone is necessarily surprised to hear that. And again, just mutual funds out, etfs up. This is the recurring theme.
Speaker 1:If you are a wholesale out there and your firm has both an ETF and a mutual fund offering in a asset class, like a large growth, I'd be curious to know if there's go, if you're seeing like the ETF version of that strategy or the ETF wrapper Take over on your sales run. That's where the rubber would meet, the road between these reported fund flows and then what wholesalers out there are seeing day to day in their Trade run. So if you do have that, or like if your firm has maybe launched an ETF offering and it's a similar strategy, similar investment style and it's taking over more of like the new business from the mutual fund, I'd be I'd be very curious to hear that. So reach out to the show, find us on Instagram or email at internal use only podcast. That's really it. On the fun flows, I don't want to go. We'll do more in-depth on some of the fun flows, but that's just a quick little snippet. Let's see other things that are helpful.
Speaker 1:So, when it comes to prospecting and getting new conversations, something that I've always, always found to be useful I know wholesalers should be applying is just Congratulatory messages whenever there's some kind of achievements or successes that you've noted from advisors. So one that I did see here was from the indigo marketing agency. They released their list of Financial advisors that are influencers. So I'm gonna bring up this list here, bear with me, and let's check out some of these folks. So it looks like 41 of the top advisor influencers here and these ones are always interesting because a lot of these advisors that have their own kind of like influencing platforms or podcasts or their own kind of like media engines, which is Different than how I think a lot of wholesalers out there are interacting with advisors like they're not like wholesalers are a part of the, where they're making investments right, like all of these financial influencers have their own investment models. They're making Fun decisions, but you don't always see that in these public articles where they're getting recognized, taking a look through it like there's some of them that aren't necessarily a like a broker that you probably would be doing business with at, let's say, a Wirehouse, for example. A lot of these groups are gonna be like independent advisors that might be either under, like, the LPL umbrella or maybe their own independent RIA, but this list is 41 folks, easy to take a look through. If you do have any of these advisors that are under your territory, way to great thing to do clip this either, send a link or maybe do like a Snip it or a screenshot of their bio where they're recognized and celebrated, and send it over to them. Easy way to To reach out to somebody who maybe you don't know. Congratulate them. Hopefully that could spark an initial conversation or possibly a meeting for you with this kind of congratulatory message.
Speaker 1:Let's see what else do we have going on here? We talked a lot about RIAs on this podcast and I know that wholesalers out there are being tasked with selling into the RA space more and more. There is a lot less data available. I hope that if you didn't catch the the fin tricks episode, that you tune into that one, because we talk a lot about RA's and how you can get good data for them. One thing that did pop up, which I thought was was interesting there's a media marketing group called Phi com partners. They they're pretty good in like the content game. As far as Podcast video content, they have recently started a series, which you can check out on YouTube, which features several different RA's from across the country and they talk about their growth stories. So, under wholesalers have a unique task with Understanding what the challenges and problems are for RA's as a table stakes before you can really get into the decision or the discussion About what investments they might need to use.
Speaker 1:Ra's are small business owners. Ra's are a massively growing Space in the industry and if you want to increase your sales, run through the RA space. It's really helpful to just kind of get an understanding of how RA's run their business and this YouTube series I think there's two that have been released, they might have more to come has been pretty good. It's. It's decent interviews, founding stories, understanding, like how RA's are positioning their clients and operating their business. So, again, use this information however you would like, but I wanted to point it out that that's all pretty good content when it comes to not only bolstering your own education of RA's, but then potentially using that information to sharpen up your messaging with prospecting, maybe making a bigger impact with your existing RA clients and being a resource and delivering on whatever you and your company Can offer advisors beyond just your products miscellaneous things that are just short.
Speaker 1:Bitcoin had another rise. There's a lot going on there. I've generally followed crypto. I'm not like a crypto guy, although I'm sure on your respective sales desk, you definitely have a ton of crypto bros out there that can tell you all about how great Bitcoin's doing. But nice to see those that are Bitcoin loyalists, that number jumping above 60, I think it went past 60,000 last week. I don't know where it is today when this podcast launches highly volatile, but Bitcoin seems to be back in the ring for the fight. So good to see Bitcoin out there.
Speaker 1:And then, lastly this is just a very short one and I think I got hit with a paywall from the Wall Street Journal but I did see that BlackRock is abandoning ESG investing. I think that title or the article was a little bit clickbaity, but it just goes on to show, or goes on to say, that I believe that the way that BlackRock is approaching their ESG messaging from now on is they're stripping the title of ESG, they're relabeling it to climate transition, which I once represented, a couple of strategies that were all about green investments and a lot of what they talked about was essentially the energy transition, all the investments that are going to be needed to be carbon neutral. So it looks like BlackRock is kind of ditching that ESG label. I have a lot more to say on the entirety of the ESG space. I would probably need to bring on a guest to have more qualified conversations about the topic and how ESG is marketed or isn't marketed and what that looks like now in a higher inflation, higher rate world. But I thought that was interesting to see BlackRock going over with the changing it up with good old rebrand of how they're defining ESG. So always interesting to follow what BlackRock does, just given their size and scale.
Speaker 1:And that's a wrap on today's show. I tried to keep it short and sweet. Hopefully it's entertaining wherever you're traveling or wherever you're spending time this week while you're reaching out to folks, prospecting and getting meetings. If you're on the road and traveling for any conferences, definitely let me know. I always try to make sure that our audience members can stay in touch while they are at conferences and events together. And, of course, if anyone is making their way to the Boston area where I'm based out of reach out to the show, either at our Instagram at internal use only podcast, or email internal use only podcast at gmailcom. Thanks everyone for tuning in. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with more interviews. Thanks for listening. Find us on Instagram at internal use only podcast, or email us at internal use only podcast at gmailcom.