1. The Advisor Clients Never Leave

There is a quality that certain financial advisors develop over time, and it is not primarily about investment performance or market knowledge or the breadth of services they offer. It is something that shows up in the first sales conversation and never quite leaves the relationship. — Ari Galper

2. SpaceX Mania Meets a New Fed Chair: The Market Risks Investors Can’t Ignore

The week opened on the back foot and ended at a record high. The S&P 500 closed Friday at 7,473.47, up 0.37% on the day and 0.9% for the week, notching its eighth straight winning week. That’s the longest weekly win streak since late 2023. The Dow added 294 points Friday to finish at 50,579.70, also a new record close, with the index gaining 2.1% on the week. The Nasdaq Composite tacked on 0.19% Friday to 26,343.97, up 0.5% for the week and posting its seventh advance in the past eight weeks. The Russell 2000 added 0.84%, leading the major averages on the session as rate-sensitive small caps caught a bid. — Lance Roberts

3. The Overspending Retiree in a Rising Stock Market

Have you ever seen a race where the lead runner stumbles at the final hurdle? I might be athletes. It might be horses. They were so close to victory. Tragedy strikes at the last second. Financial professionals might get the same feeling when a client who has carefully prepared for retirement, suddenly goes on a spending spree once they retire, Why does this happen? What can you do? — Bryce Sanders

4. Most Financial Advisors Talk Prospects Out of Becoming Clients

Many Financial Advisors believe they lose business because they didn’t explain enough. The prospect didn’t fully understand the strategy. The investment process wasn’t clear. The planning concepts were too complex. The Advisor should have spent more time educating. Maybe. — Don Connelly

5. Women Will Control Trillions. Advisors Who Still Mansplain Will Lose.

Signs point to advisors making strides with female clients and it’s a good thing given the trillions of dollars of assets women will control in the coming years. A recent Nationwide Retirement Institute® survey highlights some of the progress the wealth management industry has made with women. The survey says 95% of the women polled believe their advisors are treating them with the same level of respect afforded to male clients. — Todd Shriber

6. Stocks Rally as Inflation Reignites: What Advisors Need to Watch Now

After a volatile first quarter, equity markets have shown welcome resilience, with returns improving meaningfully through April and into May. This recent strength reflects a combination of better-than-expected economic data, continued earnings growth, and a U.S. consumer that, despite elevated price levels, remains in relatively healthy shape. At the same time, however, markets are increasingly grappling with a familiar concern: inflation. While price pressures moderated from their 2022 peaks, they have not fully returned to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target and, more importantly, may be showing signs of reacceleration. — Orion

7. AI Is About To Expose Every Weakness in Your Advisory Practice

Let’s be honest about what’s actually happening. AI isn’t coming for advice. It’s coming for the mess! The hidden inefficiencies and unspoken inconsistencies that many practices learned to live with because clients couldn’t see them. For years, a decent market, a decent reputation, and a decent work ethic could cover a multitude of sins: the CRM that’s “mostly up to date,” the service model that lives in someone’s head, the meeting notes that don’t translate into action, the follow-ups that depend on memory, the “hero” advisor who saves the day right before the client notices a problem. — Grant Hicks

8. Curious if Autocallable Growth Works? Use the Rule of 72

Broadly speaking, most investors and advisors who have been trading for a while are well aware of the Rule of 72. The easy formula helps individuals estimate roughly how long it will take for their investment to double in value. How it works is simple: You divide 72 by your anticipated annual return, and the remaining number represents how many years it will take to double your investment.  Now, when it comes to autocallable ETFs, some tend to look at these strategies as mainly a means for amplifying portfolio income. However, you can actually harness the advantages of autocallable yield notes and apply them to a long-term growth strategy. — Calamos

9. Affluent Clients Are Craving Something Most Brands No Longer Deliver

We spend so much time in business talking about innovation, automation, efficiency, scalability, optimization, and digital transformation. Which is fine. Necessary, even. But somewhere along the way, many professional experiences started to feel strangely sterile. Every event became some version of a Marriott conference room with blue uplighting and a panel discussion titled Navigating Uncertainty in Uncertain Times. Truly the dream... assuming your dream involves fluorescent lighting and lukewarm coffee. — Molly McClure

10. She’s Not a Niche—She’s the Future of Wealth

She is not a niche. She is your next decade. In Episode 3 of Capably Yours, Lisa M. Hinz gets personal and then gets practical. She opens with the story behind why she launched her business before having children, what that decision taught her about the impossible calculations women make every day, and why financial advisors are uniquely positioned to understand and lead through it. From there, Lisa gets into the business case. Women currently control more than half of U.S. personal wealth, and the numbers ahead are even more significant. But the deeper issue is not the dollars. It is the invisible tax — the compounding financial and relational cost that most plans never account for, and the structural gaps in products, process, and marketing that leave women feeling like the firm was designed for someone else. — Lisa Hinz

11. Advisors: Where Do You Add Value?

In the continual search for differentiation strategies and creating a strong sense of “value received” by clients one of the ways to think about how to stand out is to consider where you choose to try and add value in the prospects buying path. There are a number of fairly predictable steps that a prospect will tend to go through on their way to finally deciding to engage the services of a professional adviser, and in simple terms with todays buyer it tends to look like this ... — Tony Vidler