Breakaway Brokers

The initial public offering for SpaceX is poised to generate billions of dollars in profits for the fortunate few investors who got in early on Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company.

The biggest problem I find is that advisors don’t have the time they need to focus on growth. Sending out a mass invite via LinkedIn is fast and easy, but it doesn’t mean it is the most effective action you can take.

With a new boss at the helm and expectations of billions in surplus gas revenue, the Qatar Investment Authority spent the past year telegraphing a step-up in dealmaking. Iran’s attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure and Doha’s inability to ship products risk hampering that push.

It’s so hard in our industry to “benchmark” things like comp, benefits and work-from-home philosophies, because if you show me 15 teams or firms, I’ll show you 15 different ways to answer these questions. I know the WFH question is a big one, and many teams are struggling with it.

As billions of dollars leave Bitcoin and Ether funds, money is flowing into a corner of crypto that promises something investors have long struggled to find in digital assets: a clearer path from economic activity to token value.

Goldman Sachs announced a partnership with Anthropic in early May, though you probably shouldn’t view it as just a cool innovation story. It is infrastructure in motion. When institutions like Goldman move, pay attention to what problem they believe they are solving.

Advisory firms need tighter integration between their daily work tools and the CRM at the center of their world. When notes sit siloed from the rest of a firm's data and operations, the chance to deepen team collaboration and sharpen client insights goes with them.

Leading with bad news can feel wrong and even confrontational at some level, but the psychology research supports it, the behavioral finance supports it, the career math supports it, and the clients who stay through multiple cycles apply the final confirmation stamp.

Some people do much better with change than others. It isn’t that they can’t change or they actively resist it. Rather, they experience more fear, more concern and they need more clarity about what the change means to them.

As more individuals turn to non-traditional financial advice — offered through social media, artificial intelligence, or other online services and platforms — advisors will be tasked with fostering a greater sense of trust with the public.

Elon Musk has bucked the trend of industrial conglomerate breakups, including such illustrious companies as General Electric and Honeywell International Inc., and decided to form a somewhat unwieldy company that makes rockets, spacecraft, satellites, antennas, modems and now computer chips. With SpaceX’s purchase of Musk’s xAI in February, the world’s leading space company was married to an AI startup and the X social media platform.

Space has evolved from a niche corner of the stock market into an area that offers the potential for diversity and growth. The euphoria around SpaceX’s market entry is driving fresh investor flows into the sector. Since the news of the offering first became public in early December, smaller space and related stocks have soared.

The percentage-of-assets fee is so embedded in advisory economics that most firms treat it as a fixed constant rather than a business decision. It shapes how you staff, how you plan, and how you define the relationship with clients. But the AUM model is neither as old nor as inevitable as it feels.

I was in West Texas recently to witness firsthand the emerging practical applications of artificial intelligence. What I saw bolstered my conviction about the technology’s progress and the need to mold it rather than resist the change.

In the race to build the infrastructure that powers artificial intelligence, Alphabet Inc.’s Google has an enviable position: The company has a healthy cloud computing business, makes its own chips, and has struck deals to share them with companies like Anthropic PBC and Meta Platforms Inc.

To understand the full impact of AI on advisor productivity, it’s important to look beyond speed alone. The more relevant question is whether efficiency gains are creating meaningful breathing room or simply raising expectations and expanding the scope of work.

I’m all about trying to build bridges and fix things, and I am also a realist. I often tell clients there is a right way, and then there is what you can get done within your environment. I’ll always lean toward the second one.

The College for Financial Planning is a degree-granting institution offering various financial certification programs. It provides graduate degree, non-degree and continuing professional education programs for students. Founded in 1972, today it is part of Kaplan Financial and has trained over 165,000 professionals.

Scalable personalization means saving time while not sacrificing the “secret sauce” that is unique to your practice. Time savings can come from scaling portfolio construction via model portfolios or direct indexing, adding tools or talent to complement strengths, and using technology like AI.

The thinking behind space solar makes some sense: The sun doesn’t always shine on Earth, which means solar panels on the ground aren’t always gathering energy. There are no clouds to block the sun in space, so aside from a couple of times per year around the equinoxes, panels in GEO are constantly bombarded with solar rays.

Sophisticated clients and institutional prospects are already asking wealth management firms about AI governance. The firms with coherent answers are winning trust their competitors cannot buy back quickly.

Listening is a skill that can be taught, can be learned, and can be practiced. If a client doesn’t think their advisor is really listening to them, they might take that opportunity to find another advisor who does.

SpaceX also is ramping up its spending. The company said in April it’s struck an agreement for the right to acquire artificial intelligence startup Cursor for $60 billion later this year, or to pay $10 billion for the companies’ work together.

Women consistently report that the quality of their relationship with an advisor is their number one driver of satisfaction. They are not just looking for investment expertise. They are looking for partnership and a sense that their advisor understands what matters most to them.

An advisor who is involuntarily terminated should not assume the Broker Protocol is off the table. The text supports a good-faith argument that a terminated advisor can still qualify as a “departing” advisor who moves from one Broker Protocol signatory firm to another.

For many high-performing advisory teams, the challenge has never been ambition or capability. The missing ingredient has simply been an operational structure designed to support the level of success they have already surpassed. High-performing teams that tap into this reality strengthen firms from the top down and deliver exceptional service with the systems required to sustain it.

If you read my column, you know I am a proponent of following the SHIFT format. First, get the team together to identify who you want to be as a team and what success looks like to you. Make sure everyone is headed toward the same outcome and cares about the same goals.

A few weeks ago, I sat down at my laptop and built a trading platform. It connects to three financial exchanges. It ingests news from RSS feeds, web searches, Reddit and Twitter.

No one likes that heart-drop feeling of missing an important detail. And yet, this happens all too often when it comes to healthcare planning. Healthcare and health insurance are complex topics. Without an expert or the right resources, it can be very difficult for financial advisors to do on their own.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is no stranger to the stratosphere, and neither is its coming initial public offering.

Volatility, tighter margins, and rising client expectations are prompting many Advisors to reassess whether their current broker-dealer or firm is still the best long-term fit. If you’re considering a transition, in this article we will discuss 10 essential questions to help guide your decision.

As the spring session for my graduate class, Leadership Lab, comes to a close I am in Chicago working with middle management leaders in the financial advisory space on leading teams. It seems appropriate at this time to offer some reminders about simple things you can do to be a better leader for your team.

Every prospect is different. They have different interests, different decision timelines, and different levels of engagement. Treating them all the same because your CRM can't segment effectively is leaving money on the table.

Early in my financial planning career, if a client told me they had a terminal diagnosis, every alarm in my head would go off. Before the meeting was over, I would have a to-do list that was three pages long.

Would you buy OpenAI’s shares even though the transaction might expose you to a liquidity crunch? SoftBank Group Corp.’s founder Masayoshi Son did just that.

Sam Altman, the chief executive officer of OpenAI, said at a finance conference in October 2023 that he and his “CEO friends” were running a betting pool on when the first one-person billion-dollar company would be created thanks to artificial intelligence.

When I teach my graduate classes in leadership, we talk about the essence of motivation. Even the best leaders cannot motivate other people to do something. They can create an environment within which the person becomes self-motivated. But motivation is intrinsic.

Economic conditions are set to be even rockier in 2026, as the US-Israel war with Iran has set inflation on a continued upward trajectory and further rankled markets. Even if there were a de-escalation in the conflict, a domino effect has begun.

A strong professional network does far more than provide camaraderie. It’s a growth engine, a source of expertise, a safety net, and often a long-term competitive advantage. The path forward might not be another software upgrade or marketing campaign — it might simply begin with finding the right peer group.

In essence, the IPO is an acknowledgement that the ChatGPT-maker, which just raised $122 billion from investors at a valuation of $852 billion, needs what seems to be an endless amount of money to fund its race for artificial general intelligence.

Whatever you end up doing, make sure you are authentic and honest in your approach. Clients see right through a request or ask that you are uncomfortable making. You have to know what you want, find words that are right for you, and proceed accordingly.

In the competitive and client-centric world of wealth management advisory services, a strong business development strategy is more than a growth tool; it’s a necessity. While digital marketing, webinars and in-house events have their place, two of the most effective and scalable channels for high-quality lead generation remain referrals and centers of influence (COIs).

Call it the season of IPO prep. Recent launches and announcements from OpenAI and arch rival Anthropic are aimed at laying the groundwork to go public in late 2026 or early 2027, and for OpenAI, which just closed a $122 billion funding round that values it at $852 billion.

SpaceX has filed confidentially for an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter, bringing billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI company closer to delivering the biggest-ever listing.

Big names in crypto, payments and cloud infrastructure are racing to build the financial plumbing for a world in which AI agents — not humans — handle transactions on the internet.

This week’s column is dedicated to improving two of the most critical skills: asking strong open-ended questions and listening in an active and reflective way. Let’s start with the harder part — listening.

How should RIAs think about advisor cash compensation? This article focuses on the salary, bonus, and benefits arrangements commonly used in the industry and typically documented in investment advisor representative (IAR) agreements.

OpenAI has completed a deal to raise $122 billion from investors at an $852 billion valuation, marking the company’s largest funding round to date by far and bolstering its costly push for more chips, data centers and talent.

When trying to bridge the communication gap between family members, Joshua Brooks, found that studying the latest approaches in behavioral finance can help advisors. But also, simple steps, like using budgeting tools are useful so everyone can see where and how they spend.

Ask your advisors to do a time tracking sheet for two weeks. This is often annoying to people in the beginning — it’s another thing to do. However, in all cases, I have found it to be eye-opening to someone to figure out where their time goes.

Understanding how traditional RIA growth models have evolved is essential for advisors making deliberate decisions about the structure, scale, and long-term direction of their firms.

Nvidia Corp. executives will likely need to deliver a surprise at the chipmaker’s annual AI conference that begins Monday to spark a rally in the moribund stock.

Sophisticated email marketing requires automation: welcome sequences for new subscribers, nurture campaigns based on content interests, and reengagement sequences for inactive prospects.

You might want to think about what I often call “internal PR”. Your leaders are focused on other things and are likely unaware of all that is happening directly with their advisors — and definitely with clients.

Big Tech’s consolidation of power seemed a foregone conclusion even as Sam Altman’s OpenAI sparked an artificial intelligence boom with ChatGPT.

This might be the artificial intelligence era, but AI’s greatest contribution to financial services isn’t replacing advisors — it’s making them more human. Advisors have an unprecedented opportunity to focus on what their clients truly value: empathy, understanding, and genuine presence.

The recent rotation from growth to value is well documented. While the return divergences between technology stocks and materials or industrials stocks are significant, they do not tell the whole story. There are also extreme return differentials between broad industries and their sub-industries. In this article, we address the divergence of the broad technology sector and the software-as-a-service (SaaS) sub-industry.