Gamma in Action Financially Sound Households Get Advice From
Spotlight: Financial Planning Reprinted from Morningstar magazine February/March 2019 household is behaving optimally. (For example, Gamma in Action adequate life insurance may reduce available savings, but it is a vital component of Financially sound households get advice a sound financial plan for most households.) from financial planners. Financial Planners Lead the Way Of the four sources of financial information we studied, we find that households working with a financial planner made the best overall financial decisions. Meanwhile, those households working with a transactional advisor made the GAMMA better services to households than others. To do worst financial decisions of the group. David Blanchett this, we use the six most recent reports of the Survey of Consumer Finances (from 2001 Because of potential selection bias, we cannot to 2016) to explore how financial decision-making be sure that the financial planner was the In 2013, Morningstar researcher Paul Kaplan and varies for households that use different types only—or even main—reason these households I introduced a concept we called gamma.1 of sources of information. We concentrate on five made better planning decisions. After all, better Gamma attempts to quantify the potential value decision-making domains: portfolio risk level, decision-makers might choose to use a of financial planning. As U.S. households savings habits, life insurance coverage, revolving financial planner, and not the other way around. increasingly become responsible for more financial credit card balances, and emergency savings. However, our findings do at least suggest financial decisions, such as determining how much to And we look at four information sources: planners are adding the most value among save for retirement, how to invest those financial planners, transactional financial advisors, the information sources we considered, especially savings, and when to retire, and yet typically friends, and the Internet.
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