Women ‘more likely’ than men to run a US financial advisory biz: study

Research conducted into the US financial advice market by Cerulli Associates, also highlighted that younger advisers are more likely to use ETFs and mutual funds more frequently than older advisers.

Cerulli found that by segmenting the US adviser force by gender asset managers are best served to understand which groups of advisors are inclined to offer or expand planning services and as a result can align distribution strategies accordingly.

Women are more likely than men to run financial planning practices and less likely to focus exclusively on asset management as money managers, with close to one-third (31.3%) of women are financial planners, compared with 21.6% of men.

However, only 6.4% are what the US classes as money managers, less than half the percentage for their male counterparts.

Younger advisors use ETFs and mutual funds more frequently than older advisors. For advisors age 54 and younger, ETFs and mutual funds comprise approximately three-quarters of their allocations.

“Combined with their greater willingness to use packaged products such as mutual funds and ETFs, younger advisors may be more inclined to grow overall investment outsourcing than older advisors”, the Cerulli report said.

Mutual funds continue to bring in positive net flows, reaping US$13.3bn in August. However, growth cooled during the month with assets creeping up just 0.1%, hovering around US$13.8trn. After passing US$3trn in July, ETF assets jumped another 1.2% in August, closing the month with just less than US$3.1trn.

Net flows into ETFs totalled US$26.3bn in August, bringing 2017 YTD flows to just less than US$300bn.