The NFL just minted more than 250 college-aged former "student athletes" near millionaires during the NFL draft this past weekend, and while not all of them will be making millions, they'll all be earning much more money than they've ever seen before in their lives. Leland Faust, the founder of CSI Capital Management, talked to Inc. about some top tips for this new crop of potential gridiron greats. At the top of Faust’s list is to separate finances from agents. Clients don’t want agents involved in their finances other than negotiating contracts. Also, “positively never, ever, ever give a power of attorney to your agent or a general power of attorney to your financial advisor. That's where so much of the trouble happens, and people start writing themselves checks,” Faust says. He also suggests clients ask financial advisors upfront if they are a fiduciary. “If your advisor says, 'no,' you say, 'it's been nice knowing you.' If they say, 'yes,' then get it in writing,” he says.
Vanguard Cuts Fees on Total Stock Market Index Fund
As part of the fund giant’s continued efforts to slash its fees, Vanguard has cut expense ratios on 82 mutual fund and ETF share classes, including its Total Stock Market Index Fund, with $550 billion in assets. The expense ratio on the fund’s Admiral share class (ticker: VTSAX) and ETF (ticker: VTI) has been lowered one basis point to 0.04 percent. It also reduced expense ratios on the $310 billion Vanguard 500 Index Fund across three share classes and $178 billion Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund across five share classes. This is the firm’s fifth round of fee cuts, which the asset manager estimates has saved investors a cumulative $324 million. The latest cuts are detailed in this factsheet.
AdvisorEngine Buys Practice Management Firm Kredible
AdvisorEngine has acquired Kredible, a practice management firm that uses technology and research to help advisors acquire new clients by modernizing and enhancing their online presence. This marks the second purchase by the B2B robo company in 2017, following the purchase of goals-based financial planning technology from Wealthminder in February. The growth through acquisition seems to be the fruits of a $20 million investment from WisdomTree, which announced that it’s investing an additional $5 million along with the purchase of Kredible. AdvisorEngine CEO Rich Cancro said, “The financial investment and strategic relationship with WisdomTree has allowed us to expand the AdvisorEngine platform to deliver an innovative and sophisticated set of tools that advisors can use to differentiate themselves from the competition.”
