Arena Private Wealth, a $600 million-asset registered investment advisor firm founded two years ago, isn't the sort of business you would expect to lead venture capital deals or launch an exchange-traded fund. But founder and principal Mitch Stein says having private- and capital-markets businesses alongside traditional wealth management is more than a way to differentiate the firm. "If traditional fee-for-advice is under attack -- and who knows what Claude's ability to run model portfolios and build financial plans will be in the very near future -- I want to find ways for our business to be relevant a decade from now," says Stein, whose firm is based in Chicago. "I want to diversify in as many ways as I can, and part of that is ownership of product and solutions."
Speaking with Barron's Advisor, Stein -- who met Arena co-founders Jason Tosh and Ryan Watt while they were financial advisors at Fifth Third Bancorp -- explains why the team is helping launch an ETF and how they networked their way onto the VC map. And he reveals how its first big direct-investment deal, in inference chip maker Positron AI, led to its next one, a bet on harnessing the power of the Southern Ocean. More>
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Stocks you can't refuse in Trump Accounts. The Treasury Department has already dramatically expanded these tax-deferred investment accounts for children in two different ways. First, it is automatically enrolling millions of children under age 18, the department announced Oct. 1. Second, it is expanding how certain individuals can contribute to them -- and what can be contributed. Large donors can contribute stocks to groups of account holders, who generally must hold the shares for a minimum of five years -- and can't refuse the donations. The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service are seeking public comment about whether there should be more exceptions to those rules.
Investment advisors' moves for rising rates. Higher borrowing costs are reshaping the investment landscape. For investors, this shift brings both opportunity and risk. Cash and bonds now offer more income, but rising yields can pressure longer-duration bonds and many stocks. Barron's asked a panel of investment advisors: What portfolio changes are you making as interest rates rise? They told us they are moving to short- and intermediate-term bonds, adding Treasury inflation-protected securities, and rebalancing stock portfolios to avoid concentration risk.
Schwab earnings shine, but stock falls. Charles Schwab's profit jumped during the third quarter as the brokerage firm's customers added billions of dollars to their accounts and increasingly used Schwab's lending and wealth management services. The stock fell 3% on Thursday, however. One analyst said Schwab's net interest margin of 3.04% was a modest disappointment, but he still rates the shares a Buy.
Big RBC team heads to Indivisible Partners. A wealth management team that worked at RBC Wealth Management for nearly two decades has exited to establish an independent firm working with Indivisible Partners, a platform for independent advisor practices. The Baltimore-based team is establishing its own wealth management firm, Rosenwald Private Wealth.
Advisors should talk less, listen more. Here is a question to ask yourself before your next client meeting: At its end, will you have learned more about the client than they learned about you? Really getting to know clients by listening, as opposed to by displaying your expertise, is essential for success as an advisor, writes John Gatewood, the founder of the Gatewood Group. Here's the right sequence of events for client meetings: Establish a personal connection, make sure you understand their life story, and then provide your solutions, he writes.
Webull shares get slammed. Webull's stock took a beating last week, falling 19% the day after a congressional report criticized the company's ties to China. Last Friday, however, a Scotiabank analyst indicated the stock is a buy and said the company's remedies for addressing congressional concerns may not be that onerous. The stock has recovered some of its losses but is still down 18% in the past month.
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