Great article raising great questions that time will answer.

I am no longer interested in managing money. I belong to CFALA and joined to be a better analyst of financial situations. The movement is towards managing for a fee rather that developing astuteness in financial analysis. The organization is changing direction into financial management.

My answer is from a behavioral finance perspective, and lies with the relationship between advisor and client. That is tantamount. If the relationship becomes either meaningless or lies on 0.25% of a fee, then the profession is in trouble.

Several years ago, I spoke to a health insurance executive about the importance of the doctor patient relationship and the trust between them. His answer was that the insurance industry was committed to destroying this relationship and replacing it with the patient/insurance company relationship. I didn’t see it then, but insurance has accomplished this by contractually eliminating the doctor’s relationship. And patients, well or ill, have to trust the insurance company because the doctor on the relationship is only a name on a list right now and is easily replaced, by maybe the low bidder.

So there is a lesson, and the organization of financial professionals may need an organization specific to preservation of the advisor client relationship. You can get the advice for free on the internet. But you will always need someone to tell you to get into or out of any specific market. That’s where the value will be, especially as investing becomes more global, volatile and political.