1. The Financial Advice Model Is Changing. Are You Changing With It?
Changes to financial services are coming thick and fast, and advisers know that clients are rapidly changing in their expectations of service, solutions and experiences. So what clients want is changing and we should ask ourselves what do we have to change in order to keep our clients? Probably everything that we have taken for granted for years has to be considered as possibly needing changing. Client management to date has largely been about “conditioning” clients to fit into the advisory model that the industry created. We tell them what products and services are available. We tell them when we will get back in touch and update them with new information and service. We tell them when they should change products. We tell them what problems we think they should worry about – and solve. We tell them what the process of doing business with us will be. — Tony Vidler
2. Nvidia’s $5 Trillion Valuation Isn’t the Bubble You Think It Is
Did you catch Nvidia’s (NVDA) earnings last week? This is the stock of a lifetime. Sales doubled over the past year. Just look at Nvidia’s growth since the artificial intelligence (AI) boom kicked off. They are totally and utterly wrong. Cisco surged 100,000% during the internet boom. It was the stock to own. Cisco made the routers and switches that allowed computers and networks to talk to each other. It supplied the plumbing that made the internet boom possible, like Nvidia does today with its GPUs. — Stephen McBride
3. When Geopolitics Becomes a Purchase Order: The Companies Behind Asia’s Defense Buildup
In January 2026, the U.S. and Japan were already advancing what has been branded "USFJ 2.0," a structural overhaul of U.S. Forces Japan into a joint operational headquarters capable of coordinating real warfighting, not just exercises.3 Extended deterrence dialogues, force posture reviews and technology transfer frameworks—in effect, the bureaucratic scaffolding of alliance deepening was being erected rapidly, with increasing urgency. None of this happens without the companies that make it real. Defense spending translates into contracts. Contracts translate into revenue. And revenue, for the publicly traded firms embedded in Asia's defense ecosystem, translates into earnings growth over a duration that is measured in decades, not quarters. — Christopher Gannatti, CFA
4. The Housing Market Has a Problem: Too Many Sellers, Not Enough Buyers
San Antonio has been my adopted home for close to 40 years now. I’ve watched it grow through more than one boom cycle, but recent Redfin data suggests we could be looking at a bust. In July, the sixth largest U.S. city posted the steepest drop in home sales of any major metro. Sales fell 12.6% from the same month last year. Just 2,333 homes changed hands, down from 2,669. At the same time, the median sale price in San Antonio went *up. *It rose 3.3% to $320,243. According to economics 101, prices aren’t supposed to rise when demand falls off a cliff. And this isn’t a San Antonio quirk. It’s happening across the country, and the reason why says more about Washington than it does about housing. — Frank Holmes
5. AI, Betting Potentially Problematic for Gen Z Investors
The age for Gen Z is 14 to 30 years old, so in many cases, we’re talking about folks that either aren’t yet in the workforce or just got there. Plus, the data confirm that many members of this age cohort aren’t yet working with advisors. Still, there are some financial topics worth appreciating with Gen Z. Thanks in part to their tech inclinations, many members of this demographic invest earlier than their older counterparts did. Many young people have their eyes set on wealth building, not throwing in the towel on the American Dream or retiring earlier than their peers – all admirable goals and each implies that as Gen Z ages, they’ll eventually find their way to advisors — Todd Shriber
6. Small Operational Touchpoints That Build Massive Trust
More than credentials or investment returns, clients choose advisors they trust.** **According to Edelman’s Financial Services Trust Barometer, 72% of investors say trust is the most important quality when choosing an advisor, ranking above performance, fees and firm reputation. That trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. But it doesn’t always come down to big moments. More often, it’s built — or broken — through the small operational details that clients notice every day: whether their paperwork was handled smoothly, whether their advisor remembered what they talked about last quarter, whether information arrived when it was supposed to. Another study even found that 94% of investors were likely to make a referral when they “highly trusted” their advisor. Here are five operational touchpoints that quietly build the kind of trust that leads to long-term client relationships and referrals. — Nora Gallegos
7. AI Governance Isn’t a Speed Bump. It’s the On-Ramp to AI Adoption
AI Governance Isn't a Barrier. It's the Foundation. AI governance doesn't have to slow adoption. Done well, it helps firms move faster because teams know what they can use, how to use it, and where the guardrails are. A framing I hear often about AI governance is a fear that it may stand in the way of actually using AI. Legal must approve it. Compliance needs to review it. Security has to sign off. By the time those conversations can be had, the momentum is gone and the tools — or the nature of what the firm is trying to accomplish — have already changed. I understand why firms and operators may see governance this way. In some cases, that experience may have been true. But it's the wrong way to think about what governance actually does when it's built correctly. — John Lawless
8. Helping Clients Turn Wealth Into a Life Well Lived with Bryan Sweet
Bryan Sweet of Sweet Financial Partners explains why traditional financial planning may not go far enough in helping clients build the lives they actually want. Through Dream Architect Life, Bryan expands the conversation beyond wealth management to include purpose, health and longevity, legacy, and meaningful experiences. The process begins by helping clients identify what they want their lives to look like, then creating a blueprint for turning those ideas into something — PowerAdvice Podcast
9. AI Has Been Built. Now It Has to Prove It.
This bull market just received a one-year extension based upon NVIDIA's earning release this week. According to CEO Jensen Huang, AI construction has only accelerated and will increase and broaden wider throughout 2027. NVIDIA's stock soared on the news, but remains below all-time highs, as do the stocks of its downstream component providers. Why haven’t record AI earnings provided record returns for AI stock investors? For that answer, we must migrate our thinking beyond the buildout of AI to the returns on AI. In short, it’s time for AI to prove it. — David Waddell
10. AI Is Killing Website Traffic. Content Syndication Could Be the New SEO
Website Traffic Is Still Falling. Content Syndication Is How Brands Get Found Instead. Gartner predicts organic search traffic will drop 25% by 2026 and 50% by 2028 as buyers are turning to AI for answers at a growing rate, and an increasing number of those answers never send anyone to a website anymore. The brands that can adjust the fastest are changing what “getting found” means from here on out. — Eric Buckley
11. Why Clients Really Leave Their Financial Advisors—and It’s Not Fees
The Importance of Understanding Client Departure: While many advisors might instinctively point to fees and performance as reasons clients leave, Joe challenges this notion. He shares findings from empirical research, showing that the top reasons for client attrition are actually. — Joseph Lukacs
