Tag: Innovation

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Advisor Innovations: Asset Management Pioneer Bruce Bond on the Story Behind Innovator ETFs

Advisor Innovations: Asset Management Pioneer Bruce Bond on the Story Behind Innovator ETFs

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In this episode, David Armstrong is joined by Bruce Bond, CEO and co-founder of Innovator Capital Management, a pioneer in the ETF industry and three-time WealthManagment.com Industry Award winner, to discuss pushing boundaries within the ETF market, diving into where the ETF business is going and how advisors are using ETFs in their client portfolios. 

Bond discusses:

  • The problem Bond and co-founder John Southard were looking to solve with Innovator’s Buffer ETFs, which limit the upside potential on market gains while setting a floor on the downside, and how advisors are using them.
  • Why the ETF is a better wrapper for the investment strategy that typically was found in a structured product offering from the largest investment houses. 
  • Bruce’s outlook for the markets, and how the volatile turn in equities is accelerating asset flows this year into the Buffer ETFs.
  • How the Buffer ETFs prompted a number of imitators to launch their own versions of defined-outcome ETFs. 
  • Which asset classes are on the white board at Innovator headquarters for the next ETFs. 
  • The story of how Innovator’s hometown of Wheaton, Ill., became the hotbed of ETF innovation, starting with Unit Investment Trust managers from Nuveen and Nike Securities, now First Trust. 

Connect With Bruce Bond:

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About Our Guest:

Bruce is co-founder and CEO of Innovator Capital Management. Having cofounded PowerShares Capital Management in 2003, he is recognized as one of the pioneers of the ETF industry. His leadership, creativity and entrepreneurial vision challenged the conventional thinking about ETFs and blazed a trail that made way for the massive growth of what is known today as smart or strategic beta. In addition to being recognized for best-in- class products, Bruce has been named the ETF industry’s most influential person on multiple occasions. He is a thought leader and has been quoted in financial publications around the globe.



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17. The Wealthtech Landscape with LPL’s Gary Carrai

17. The Wealthtech Landscape with LPL’s Gary Carrai

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In this episode, David Armstrong is joined by Gary Carrai, former financial advisor, co-founder of Fortigent with Steve Lockshin, and currently executive vice president of LPL Financial in charge of third-party technology partnerships. Gary discusses the evolving affiliation options LPL Financial has opened for financial advisors and how he views the fintech ecosystem around wealth management, where he thinks LPL will turn next for fintech partnerships and his views in Cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence as it relates to financial advice. 

Gary discusses:

  • His career in financial services, including his early days as an advisor and selling his technology firm to Fortigent to LPL.
  • His current role overseeing wealth technology partnerships for LPL
  • What many advisors get wrong about their technology stack
  • The great bundled, to unbundled, to bundled again pendulum in technology ecosystems for independent advisors
  • How COVID-19 impacted financial advisors’ decision-making
  • LPL’s approach to cryptocurrency

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15. Ric Edelman Looks To the Future

15. Ric Edelman Looks To the Future

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In this episode, David Armstrong is joined by Ric Edelman, founder of Edelman Financial Services (now Edelman Financial Engines) and the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals. Edelman discusses how he founded his firm with a focus on middle class savers when every other advisory firm was only looking for HNW clients, and grew the business $22 billion in AUM before merging it with Financial Engines. Stepping away this year from the firm he founded, he is now focused on investments based around technologies that he says will transform our lives, including blockchain, genomics and artificial intelligence, and is on a mission to educate financial advisors about cryptocurrency.  

Ric discusses:

  • How his earlier career as a journalist helped set him up for success as an advisor and entrepreneur. 
  • His views on the “holier-than-thou” critics of advisory fees based on AUM. 
  • Why he thinks this is the right time to step away from Edelman Financial Engines, even as he remains the largest individual shareholder. 
  • Why he convinced Morningstar and Blackrock to partner with him in launching the iShares Exponential Technology ETF (ticker: XT), the first of the thematic ETFs focusing on transformative technologies. 
  • How most financial advisors are failing in their fiduciary duties by ignoring the rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a new asset class. 
  • Why he created the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals.

Connect With Ric Edelman:

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About Our Guest:

Ric Edelman co-founded Edelman Financial Services with his wife Jean in 1986. He sold a majority stake to Sanders Morris Harris Group in 2005 and merged the firm with Financial Engines, to become Edelman Financial Engines, in 2018. He helped Morningstar create the Morningstar Exponential Technologies Index from which iShares launched the Exponential Technology ETF (ticker: XT). He founded the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals to educate the financial services industry about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. 

 

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