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January 01, 2008 at 02:00 AM
The Romans named their midwinter month Januarius in honor of the two-faced god of doorways who looked back into the old year while looking ahead at the new. I now present for your consideration two items that seem appropriate as we moderns slip into the new year. One is old, yet remains central to what advisors do for clients. The other is something new that you may not consider to be in your wheelhouse yet, but which I suggest you may want to steer toward in the near future to stay competitive and remain your clients’ trusted advisor.
The first has to do with how you build portfolios for clients, which is the subject of Kathleen M. McBride’s cover story. It seemed to us that the recent market volatility, consumer uncertainty, and the still aborning subprime crisis would lead advisors and the academics to whom advisors listen to rethink how they build investment portfolios for their clients. So Kate went exploring. While I don’t want to give away too much of the results of her reporting, suffice it to say that thinkers like Rob Arnott, Roger Ibbotson, and Lincoln Anderson, along with peers of yours such as Harold Evensky and Gene Balliett, are deeply concerned over how to build portfolios in the current uncertain economic and market environment. As seasoned pros, however, they are not distracted by, as Kate writes, “the short term gyrations of the credit markets and economy,” but counsel maintenance of a long-term strategic focus and an openness to short-term tactical shifts, while keeping a gimlet eye on what can sap any portfolio of vigor: costs and taxes. The challenge is how to do this, of course; see the story on page 36.
As for what’s new, I have two names for you: Watson and Crick. There are now multiple labs (23andMe in Mountain View, California; deCODE Genetics in Reykjavik, Iceland; and Navigenics in Redwood Shores, California, for instance), to which you can send a simple DNA sample and in some instances for less than $1,000 find out more about your past and your future than you ever thought was possible.
