(New York)

The industry has been talking about it for years, but now it appears to be happening in earnest—advisors are finally targeting younger clients in force. While Baby Boomers dominate the industry’s AUM right now, 42% of firms say they are actively changing their marketing and networking to attract Gen Xers and Millennials. TD Ameritrade comments that “In just five years, RIAs expect 41% of their clients to be Gen Xers or millennials. This should be a wake up call to those who think that Next Gen wealth is literally still a generation away”.

FINSUM: The tide is really starting to shift and it is going to happen faster and faster over the next few years as Baby Boomers age and the wealth of the young grows.

(San Francisco)

Sometimes a story is just so out there that you have to cover it, and today that story is about Uber. Last year a self-driving taxi fleet sounded progressive, but Uber announced this week that it is planning to launch a flying taxi service by 2023. The company is planning to work with NASA on an urban air traffic control system and it debuted a vision of greatly scaling up aircraft manufacturing. Uber believes airplanes could be built with such scale that the cost of a commute in a flying tax would be the same cost as their ground transportation today.

FINSUM: This is quite an ambitious vision! We suspect it will take at least a decade longer to achieve this plan, but it would certainly be revolutionary.

(Washington)

President Trump made what may turn out to be a landmark move yesterday when he announced a proposal to reign in drug prices. The plan is a blueprint to drive down costs, and it transfers more power to health insurers to compete on pricing. Medicare is also involved, as the huge US health care service has a major influence on drug prices. Critics say the plan falls well short of what Trump promised during his campaign, when he said drug companies were “getting away with murder”.

FINSUM: We do not fully have the expertise to comment on the potential effectiveness of the plan, but it certainly seems a step in the right direction, and one in which drug company shareholders don’t need to be too worried.

(Washington)

One of the senior-most figures at the SEC, Michael Piwowar, who has been a commissioner for five years, has just announced he will step down from his post after July 7th. The resignation has massive implications for advisors because Piwowar has been a strong opponent of the DOL version of the fiduciary rule and has generally been very pro de-regulation. His stepping down will leave just four commissioners active, two of whom are Democrats. This means the new SEC version of the fiduciary rule, universally seen as more accommodating to the industry, might have some severe difficulties in getting approved, as the Democrats are likely to vote against its implementation.

FINSUM: So in order to alleviate this risk, the White House and Senate would need to move quickly to nominate and approve a new commissioner/s. Nonetheless, this remains a major risk.

(Washington)

The DOL made an announcement yesterday, telling the industry that it would temporarily suspend enforcement action of various parts of its fiduciary rule. The department said it “will not pursue prohibited transactions claims against investment advice fiduciaries who are working diligently and in good faith to comply with the impartial conduct standards for transactions that would have been exempted in the BIC Exemption and Principal Transactions Exemption, or treat such fiduciaries as violating the applicable prohibited transaction rules”.

FINSUM: This was largely expected given the DOL’s loss in the fifth circuit court, but evidently the wording of it came as a surprise.