Should You Fire Your Male Broker?

Who's a better financial planner, a man or a woman? That was the gist of the story when today’s guest, Blair duQuesnay, penned an op-ed in the New York Times. I’m guessing she didn’t think it would go viral. Welp, it did. Consider Firing Your Male Broker took off like gangbusters with reaction coming down on both sides of the aisle. What follows is from Blair’s blog, The Belle Curve, and it explains why exactly there was so much reaction: Some criticized the use of the term broker, which applies only to registered representatives of brokerage firms, commissioned sales agents. Those of us who work for independent RIA firms are advisers who adhere to a fiduciary standard. That is a different and equally important topic for an NYT op-ed. Maybe they will let me write it. Bottom line, the investing public uses the words broker/advisor/adviser interchangeably. They do not know the difference, and the article met them where they are. Other criticism revolved around the use of research on investment performance to justify the argument. In my mind, the research was not central to the thesis there should be more women advisors. Barber and Odean found that among individual investors, women outperformed men because the traded less often and incurred less trading costs. That information is fascinating and led to additional work on the affect of overconfidence on investment performance. It is not the sole basis of my argument, merely additional ammunition. Less than 20% of financial advisors are women, a statistic that has not changed in the 15 years I have been here. It’s about time for more. Have a money question? Email me here. We love feedback so please leave us a rating or review in Apple Podcasts. "Jill on Money" theme music is by Joel Goodman, www.joelgoodman.com. Connect with me at these places for all my content: http://www.jillonmoney.com/ https://twitter.com/jillonmoney https://www.facebook.com/JillonMoney https://www.instagram.com/jillonmoney/ https://www.youtube.com/c/JillSchlesinger https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillonmoney/ http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/jill-on-money https://apple.co/2pmVi50 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices