Cogent: Affluent Generation X Investors Dissatisfied with Advisors

By Warren S. Hersch

April 27, 2011 at 08:00 PM

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Many affluent U.S. investors in their 30s and 40s are thinking about finding new financial advisors.

Cogent Research L.L.C., Cambridge, Mass., has based that conclusion on results from an online survey of 4,025 affluent investors. The sample included 738 affluent Gen X investors ages 29 to 44.

About 42% of the affluent Gen X investors with advisors said they are satisfied with their primary financial advisors.

The level of advised Gen X investors who said they are satisfied is "significantly lower" than the level for survey participants in any other generation, Cogent says.

About 51% of the affluent, advised Gen X investors said they are the "on the fence" or "likely to switch" primary financial advisors within the following 12 months.

When asked to explain why they would be likely to switch, affluent Gen X investors cited dissatisfaction with advisors' communications, advisors' investment performance, and advisors' ability to react to changing market conditions, Cogent says.

Affluent Gen X investors said their assets grew by an average of 11% in 2010.

Affluent Gen X investors who handled all of their own investment decisions reported 28% asset growth in 2010.

Advised Gen X investors said their investable asset total increased only 3% in 2010.

But advised affluent investors in the baby boom generation and the Silent Generation performed better than self-directed investors in those cohorts, Cogent says.

The self-directed Gen X investors may have done better because they accepted more risk than advised Gen X investors in 2010 and put more of their assets in equity-based products, such as equity mutual funds, Cogent says.