Premium
Retail Financial Advice: Does One Size Fit All?
Author(s) -
FOERSTER STEPHEN,
LINNAINMAA JUHANI T.,
MELZER BRIAN T.,
PREVITERO ALESSANDRO
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the journal of finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 18.151
H-Index - 299
eISSN - 1540-6261
pISSN - 0022-1082
DOI - 10.1111/jofi.12514
Subject(s) - asset allocation , sophistication , portfolio , advice (programming) , business , finance , asset (computer security) , actuarial science , personalization , investment (military) , economics , set (abstract data type) , marketing , computer science , programming language , social science , computer security , sociology , politics , political science , law
Using unique data on Canadian households, we show that financial advisors exert substantial influence over their clients' asset allocation, but provide limited customization. Advisor fixed effects explain considerably more variation in portfolio risk and home bias than a broad set of investor attributes that includes risk tolerance, age, investment horizon, and financial sophistication. Advisor effects remain important even when controlling flexibly for unobserved heterogeneity through investor fixed effects. An advisor's own asset allocation strongly predicts the allocations chosen on clients' behalf. This one‐size‐fits‐all advice does not come cheap: advised portfolios cost 2.5% per year, or 1.5% more than life cycle funds.