It’s an August Friday, and I know many of you are prepping for your last vacation or quick summer get away before school starts again, so let’s call this education Friday. What follows are three multisyllable word definitions that are very simple, but important to understand.
Fiduciary:
Taking the fiduciary oath or being a fiduciary means that we must act in the client’s best interest at all times. We do act as a fiduciary to all clients! Many do not. An example of not acting as a fiduciary would be working for the financial company first before the client i.e. Forcing a new issue, company product or making a trade in a stock that your company also makes a market in.
Discretion:
We do take discretion in all client accounts and this means we have the right to make investment decisions without calling the client first. It is impossible to call all clients at the same time in order to make an investment move, thereby leaving some out of the loop for a possible extended period of time especially when fast decisions are necessary.
Custody:
WE DO NOT CUSTODY CLIENT ASSETS! Essentially this means that we act as a Sheppard to client assets, and you never make an investment check payable to us. We have an outside vendor who processes, sends monthly statements, and whom we make trades with for client accounts. Many of the improprieties that have occurred were because advisers were taking custody of client assets, we do not, and have no intention of doing so.
Thanks for taking time for a little light educational reading, we hope you better understand the importance of these “Wall Street” words and their importance on your investment decisions! JK