cREATING INvESTmENT INcOmE WITh TRANSPARENcY

Chapter 41

CRgeAtIn InvestMent

InCoMe WIth

tRAnsPARenCY

By C. Grant Conness

& anDrew M. Costa

Perhaps the saddest things we see daily at Global Wealth Management
are the shocked faces of new clients when they realize that their broker’s
investment strategy was really no strategy at all, or the look of despair
on someone’s face when they learn they cannot retire as planned be-
cause they lost 40% of their investments almost overnight. As a result,
of these stories and others like them, our primary goal became creating
investment income with transparency for our clients. In other words, we
choose not to hide fees or the real rate of return on investments we make.
In fact, we believe transparency should be a goal of our entire industry;
therefore, it became our mission to help investors seek transparency.

To achieve transparency in a business that normally operates in the dark
alleys of buried fees and selling and not advising requires a strategy not
normally found in an investment firm. The primary difference between
our philosphy and that of our competition equals the difference between
advising and selling. We advise; others sell.

As a general rule, an Investment Advisor has an obligation when work-
ing with his clients to act as a fiduciary. A broker when working with
his clients acts on a suitability basis. As fiduciary advisors to our clients