On January 10^th, we were surprised to see this brief article on Analysis-Paralysis, stating that: “By 2031, there could be one million managed investment products.” The article also points out that: “As of June 30, 2023, there were more than 742,000 products available.”

Wow! That’s dramatically more that we had estimated.

In many of our earlier posts, you’ll see us point out there are estimated to be well over 20,000 mutual fund and ETF choices. We believed 20,000+ to be a conservative under-estimate.

What we didn’t expect was finding out that we might have been under-estimating by a factor of 10X or more!

The article points out the largest single group of these investment choices is mutual funds and that the number of ETFs is also very large and rapidly growing.

However, whether it’s a total of 20,000 or 200,000+ mutual funds and ETFs, there are so many choices and so much information about each as to make trying to evaluate which ones are best for your clients, especially individually customized recommendations, virtually impossible.

What’s needed is a way to effectively use and benefit from such an overwhelming and growing number of choices and volume of information.

Fortunately, there has been a significant advance in information technology – the ProRRT℠ – that now enables investment advisors and brokers to objectively score and rank any number of mutual funds and ETFs, within any asset class, in mere moments.

Importantly, for Reg. BI compliance, it also effectively filters out all conflicts of interest, both known and unknowable. It gives you the ability to provably demonstrate to regulators that what you are recommending to clients are in your clients’ best interests.

The ProRRT℠ utilizes Decision Technologies Corporation’s patented decision-assistance technology that enables you to select any blend any of 48 different performance parameters and individually weight them to match their degree of importance to your clients and you.

Using this blend of weighted performance factors, the ProRRT℠ will enable you to score and rank all of the funds within any asset class. It will show you (and enable you to show your clients) just how theirs (those you’ve recommended) did compared to all of the other choices you could have recommended and not just to a benchmark index.

It is also important to understand that a simplified version of the ProRRT℠ is now available to individual investors (your clients). It’s called the Retail Investment Tracking Application℠ (aka “Rita℠”).

Why is that important?

Well, with Rita℠ (and the 24 performance factors it provides), individual investors will now be able to score and rank, for themselves, the mutual fund and ETF recommendations you’ve been giving them.

If they see that one you’ve recommended ranks 176 or 227 out of 677 choices within the asset class, with average annual returns (of perhaps 5%, 6%, or more) less than the top ranked funds and with higher average annual volatility over the last 5 years, then what?

Would you be at risk of losing that client?

Would you be vulnerable to another advisor (using the ProRRT℠ to show your client that performance difference) recruiting your client away from you?

It’s important to understand that “The Rita℠ Effect” is real and, from experience, we believe its core lesson is simply this: Advisors cannot afford to have their clients know more about the relative performance of what the advisor has recommended than the advisor does.  

We also believe that as investor awareness and use of Rita℠ grows, so will the benefits of the ProRRT℠ to advisors using it, as will the risks to advisors who do not.

Regardless of the possible effects of Rita℠, in this world of too many choices and too much information about them, the ProRRT℠ was specifically designed to help advisors answer this key question:

“Of all the available choices, which ones are best for my clients?”

It was also specifically designed to help you recruit clients away from your competition.

Take the no cost and no risk opportunity (using the free “Checkup” version of the ProRRT℠) to see just how good the mutual funds and ETFs you’re recommending REALLY are in comparison to others in which you could have recommended.

Try it and see for yourself how much money you and your clients may have been, and perhaps still are, “leaving on the table” by being in poor performing choices – choices that you (and they) have had no meaningful way, until now, to comparatively evaluate.

In a world in which everyone appears to be doing the same things in largely the same ways, it’s time for a meaningful change.

It’s time for you to be able to clearly differentiate yourself from your competition and to benefit from the unique competitive advantage, better investment results, and greater client satisfaction that the ProRRT℠ can uniquely provide.

And, for any special help you may need with your firm’s compliance approval process, please contact us. We’ll be happy to carry the weight of that for you.