Mutual fun

We talk to a lot of advisors, and every once in awhile they let their hair down and tell us some of the funny things they encounter on the job.

Diversity dilemma

An advisor in Nova Scotia got an interesting lesson in asset allocation and diversification from one of his clients.

The client had the good fortune to win $200,000 in the lottery. After he had indulged a pent up desire for a new pickup truck, the advisor politely asked what had become of the rest of the winnings.

The client proudly informed the advisor that he had diversified his holdings – by placing half the money in a savings account at a bank in Halifax, and the other half in a savings account across the harbour in Dartmouth.

Says the advisor: “Somehow, I managed to keep a straight face.”

Suits you fine

A compliance officer once confessed to me that when he was a newbie at a large brokerage house in the States he spent his first week thinking all the talk about suitability had something to do with his poor dress sense.

Not your father’s depression

Finally, less humour and more of a reality check.

An advisor out West notes that during client discussions over the past six months he’s been reminding people that “We’re part of history” and urging them to put current events into perspective.

When clients who’d planned to retire at 62 express concern about having to remain at work until age 63 or 65, he draws comparisons to the lives led by their fathers, mothers and grandparents for whom retirement may never have even been an option.

Further, he’ll note, so far this generation hasn’t had to face a bona fide depression and has, for the most part, managed to not get sent to war.

He’ll look them in the eye and remind them their fathers and grandfathers may well have had to “stand in a ditch where it was raining for six months.”

“I tell people that and they really get quiet,” he says, “and then they become really grateful about what they do have.”

In that context, he says, they look at their lives today and say, “What hardship?”

Let’s hear from you

Have a funny anecdote? Send it in . . . the best ones will get published on Fridays.

(08/21/09)