Fiduciary Standard vs Suitability Standard

Let's talk a minute about the different types of invest firms that you might choose to work with. One type of firm is called a broker dealers and that's usually what think of when you hear the term Wall Street Firm. They're also called wire house firms. It comes from the old days when people would buy individual stocks through these Wall Street Firms. The Wall Street Firms that are governed by the broker dealers are supervised by FINRA which is different than a registered investment advisory. A registered investment advisory is directly regulated by the SEC. The biggest difference between the two firms is that broker dealers can do things on a commissioned basis or they can do things on a fee basis if they also have a registered investment advisory. A registered investment advisory is exclusively fee based only. They cannot do things on a commissioned basis because they don't have a relationship with a broker dealer. This is important because the difference in standards of the two regulations are very critically important to the consumer. With the broker dealer they are covered by what they call a suitability standard. And what that means is that a broker has to sell you something on the standard of is it suitable for him to sell you that product. Contrast that with the registered investment advisory firms. They're held to a standard that's a fiduciary standard. A fiduciary standard says that every decision that we make on behalf of our clients has to be in our client's best interest. That's a big difference. A huge difference in the way we conduct our business. We're not salespeople on the registered investment advisory side. We're advisors. If you're working with a broker dealer firm you need to make sure you're not dealing with just a salesperson.

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