The value of personal advice: wealth management through the pandemic

Executive summary

In this edition of our annual report, The state of North American retail wealth management, we will unpack this unexpected year. How resilient were business models in 2020? What was the impact of the pandemic on client relationships and pricing? How did trading patterns change? And how prepared are wealth managers for the next test, particularly given recent market performance? The answers to these questions have implications not just for individual advisors but also for the executive leaders of wealth-management firms who rely on advisor growth to help build shareholder value. This report is based on our comprehensive and proprietary dataset1 collected from more than 20 North American wealth-management firms. Our data is refreshed continually and is built from detailed client-holdings and transaction information from roughly 70,000 financial advisors. This offers an unmatched view not only into the behaviors and characteristics of wealth- management clients but also into how advisor decisions impact client outcomes as well as the economic performance of their institutions.