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. 

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. 

Although the Trump administration is rolling back some environmental regulations and cutting incentives for renewable energy development, many sustainability-focused investments remain commercially viable. 

Deregulatory moves and proposed tariff increases may challenge clean energy supply chains and weaken enforcement of environmental protections. However, the economics of renewables like wind and solar continue to improve, with costs often rivaling those of fossil fuels in parts of the U.S. Demand for energy is also rising due to technologies like AI, reinforcing the need for diverse and resilient power sources. 

UBS maintains that a diversified, global approach to ESG investing can continue delivering competitive returns even in a less supportive political environment.

Despite shifting U.S. policy, sectors such as infrastructure, energy efficiency, and materials still present strong opportunities for sustainable investors.

Amid a turbulent market and new U.S. tariff regime, actively managed ETFs like the T. Rowe Price Small-Mid Cap ETF (TMSL) are gaining appeal for their flexibility, research depth, and outperformance potential. TMSL, which has outperformed the Russell 2500 Index by 170 basis points year-to-date, exemplifies how active strategies can navigate uncertainty and respond to evolving risks and opportunities. 

The new 10% blanket U.S. tariffs—unseen since 1946—have contributed to earnings downgrades and increased economic unpredictability, making adaptability a critical asset. Active managers can curate portfolios based on bottom-up analysis, selecting strong companies while avoiding those likely to underperform. 

TMSL’s focus on small- and midcap firms adds sector diversification to tech-heavy portfolios, with leading exposures in industrials, financials, and healthcare. 

Finsum: Its key to consider how fees play a role in active funds but many deliver well above depending on the economic environment. 

As ETFs continue to evolve, new “enhanced” or actively structured ETFs are emerging as thoughtful alternatives to traditional passive strategies, especially in today’s volatile market. 

Fidelity leaders emphasized how these hybrid ETFs aim to maintain core market exposure while improving on passive models through modest, research-driven security selection. Amid rising concerns like U.S. tariffs and potential recession risks, investors were advised to stay cautious but open to market rebounds following short-term shocks.

Fidelity’s Craig Ebeling noted that passive index tracking can lead to unintended exposures, while enhanced ETFs allow for greater alignment with investor goals by avoiding certain stocks. The Fidelity Enhanced Large Cap Core ETF (FELC), for instance, leverages a quantitative system to actively select large-cap equities and has returned 9.78% since inception. 

Finsum: Investors remain optimistic about long-term opportunities, particularly with enhanced ETFs designed to improve benchmark outcomes.