AdvisorOne Wealth Editor in Chief Kathleen McBride has closely followed the Securities and Exchange Commission's study on whether to extend a fiduciary standard to all advice givers in her series, SEC and the Fiduciary Study.
Extending the standard beyond RIAs could signal a seismic shift in how advice is provided to investors, changing the way brokers and investment advisors conduct their businesses, and what protections the SEC is willing to institute for investors. Not since the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 has there been more potential for re-drawing the rules that govern conduct of brokers and investment advisors toward customers and clients.
Click through for more on the long road to resolution over whether and how the fiduciary standard should be applied.
In late January, the SEC delivered to Congress its six-month report, "Study Regarding Obligations of Brokers, Dealers, and Investment Advisers," mandated in the Dodd-Frank Act. The report is the next step in the long debate over whether the fiduciary standard should apply to all who provide investment and financial advice to individual investors.
Read Part 1 of the SEC and the Fiduciary Study series.
SEC and the Fiduciary Study: Where Do We Go From Here?
