Wealth Management
Growth ETFs offer a simplified way to invest in high-potential stocks without the time-consuming analysis required for picking individual winners. Key factors to consider when choosing a growth ETF include its long-term performance, sector diversification, expense ratio, and top holdings.
The best ETFs typically maintain strong five- and ten-year returns, low costs, and broad exposure to tech-heavy but diversified portfolios. Notable examples include the iShares Russell Top 200 Growth ETF (IWY), Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Growth ETF (SCHG), and Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK), all boasting annualized 5-year returns near or above 18%.
While many of these funds are concentrated in companies like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, they differ in fees, yield, and sector weightings.
Finsum: Overall, growth ETFs offer an efficient path to access strong market performers with minimal effort and competitive returns.
Vanguard has introduced a generative AI-powered tool designed to help financial advisors create personalized, compliant client communications more efficiently. The tool generates tailored summaries of Vanguard’s most-read market insights, adjusting for client knowledge level, life stage, and preferred tone.
It also automatically includes the appropriate disclosures, streamlining the compliance process. Lauren Wilkinson, head of advisor technology, emphasized that this beta-tested tool reflects Vanguard’s broader push to integrate innovative technologies that support both advisors and clients.
Beyond AI, Vanguard is also exploring cutting-edge fields like spatial computing, quantum technology, and blockchain to enhance investor outcomes and deliver deeper personalization.
Finsum: AI can enhance advisor effectiveness by enabling more customized and meaningful client interactions.
In a market rattled by volatility in both stocks and bonds, dividend ETFs are drawing attention as a middle ground between growth and income strategies. While passive giants like Vanguard’s VIG and Schwab’s SCHD dominate with low fees and broad exposure, a growing number of active ETFs—like T. Rowe Price’s TDVG—are betting they can outperform by handpicking high-quality dividend payers.
TDVG blends income with potential capital appreciation and holds familiar names like Apple and Microsoft, offering tech exposure without overconcentration. Active managers argue their flexibility allows them to adapt to changing market conditions in ways passive index funds cannot, especially when navigating risks like dividend cuts or sector shifts.
Although passive dividend ETFs still attract more investor flows due to cost advantages, actively managed funds are slowly gaining traction, particularly among investors seeking income stability amid rising macroeconomic uncertainty.
Finsum: For those dependent on income—like retirees—dividend strategies remain appealing, but experts caution that yield alone shouldn’t drive decisions.
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Thrivent is ramping up its recruiting efforts to hire nearly 600 new financial advisors in 2025, aiming to counteract the anticipated wave of advisor retirements expected across the industry.
While the broader advisor workforce has grown only 0.3% annually over the past decade, Thrivent’s hiring initiative would represent a 2% increase, far outpacing the trend. The firm is targeting early-career professionals for salaried virtual advisor roles in key cities like Denver, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Dallas. These roles are intended to serve as stepping stones to more advanced positions, either within Thrivent’s employee structure or through its independent RIA, the Thrivent Advisor Network.
With over a third of U.S. advisors projected to retire within the next ten years, Thrivent is focusing on building a younger, more diverse advisor base aligned with future client demographics.
Finsum: It’s worth noting this trend in recruiting and what incentives are offered to attract this talent.
As traditional 60/40 portfolios face challenges from high interest rates, large deficits, and geopolitical uncertainty, BlackRock suggests evolving asset allocations by incorporating alternatives like liquid alts, gold, and bitcoin. Their Target Allocation model portfolios follow a structured process—sourcing, screening, and sizing—to thoughtfully reconfigure bond-heavy portfolios for modern conditions.
This involves reducing standard bond exposure in favor of bond-like alternative strategies such as market neutral or merger arbitrage, while preserving resilience in recessionary scenarios.
Screening over 500 liquid alt funds, BlackRock emphasizes operational quality, performance consistency, and true diversification potential before inclusion. Ultimately, portfolio sizing is optimized to align with investor risk profiles, often making alternatives a significant component—up to half of the fixed income portion in balanced portfolios—while adjusting for more conservative or aggressive strategies.
Gold and bitcoin, though more volatile, should be considered for diversification, with gold typically replacing bonds and bitcoin funded from equities.
Monte Carlo simulations have become an essential tool for retirement planning, allowing users to model thousands of financial outcomes based on variables like investment returns, inflation, and life expectancy. Using AI assistant Claude, the author generated a detailed simulation for a hypothetical couple—Joe and Jane Average—without needing programming skills or statistical expertise.
Claude translated the couple’s retirement goals and financial data into a 5,000-iteration simulation using historical return data and a 60/40 stock-bond allocation, delivering a 95.78% success rate for retirement sustainability.
The simulation projected a median portfolio of $28.2 million by Jane’s life expectancy, with very low depletion risk even in advanced age. Key strengths of the plan included strong pre-retirement savings, realistic spending goals, a balanced asset mix, and delayed Social Security filing.
Finsum: Monte Carlo simulation can give you the edge to navigate and model various situations to deliver the best results to your clients.