Merriman

As I read many articles about how to select a financial advisor I frequently see mentioned the importance of working with a Certified Financial Planner™ (CFP®). But what does the designation mean, and how does a person become one?  Since I am in the middle of working on my designation, I thought I would provide some insight.

If you decide to become a CFP®, here’s the process you would face.  First, you must have a Bachelors degree from an accredited university and a minimum of three years of applicable work experience. I’ve got these requirements covered and am working on the next step, which is the educational work.  The courses are offered by numerous sources and follow the same general topics. I chose the College of Financial Planning for my coursework.

Each course listed below is similar to a college quarter of studies with approximately 1000 pages of reading and 500 pages of questions and casework.  Each course takes about 160 – 220 hours of study and has a final exam.  My program includes the below five courses, and starting in 2012 the college will add a sixth “capstone” course that will be casework on the entire program.

• Financial planning process and insurance
• Investment planning
• Income tax planning
• Retirement planning
• Estate planning

When you finish your coursework, you can then sit for the comprehensive exam given by the CFP® board three times a year.  It’s a two day test of your knowledge, comprehension, and your ability to apply what you know to cases.  The approximate pass rate is 50% and it’s recommended to have an additional 250 hours of study for the exam.  The course, materials, testing fees and test prep can easily cost you $5000 – $7000.  After passing the exam there are ethics requirements and continuing education.  To see a complete listing of requirements and topics, visit www.cfp.net.

To become a CFP® is a rigorous and costly endeavor.  The process has helped me to do a better job advising my clients and I can see the value in the recommendation that people work with a CFP®.

Little known by most, behind the scenes at Merriman we manage a small hedge fund for many of our accredited clients. This fund, the Leveraged Global Opportunity Fund L.P., is now in its 17^th year. During this time we’ve received various honors, and last week our fund made the finalist list for the 2011 HFMWeek U.S. Performance Awards for the Macro Under $1 Billion category. Winners will be announced at an event in New York on October 13^th. More information is available on their website HFMWeek.com.

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You may have noticed that our talented staff members are more frequently being published outside our own Merriman blog and website. We’re proud to tell you this occurred twice in the past few days:

Director of Research Larry Katz’s article, “Three keys to a richer retirement,” was published on MarketWatch.com

Senior Editor Rich Buck was a featured blogger on Crosscut.com with a post on “The best graduation gift ever.”

Publishing in the national press allows us to share the expertise and writing talents of our team with a national audience. Since a big legacy of our company is providing free online financial education to the public, we feel like this activity is a perfect fit with who we are.

We hope you enjoy these two articles and future ones to come.

We like to share whatever is currently on our minds, and there are a number of ways we do it. In addition to blog posts you read here, we frequently post on a number of other information sharing networks, so you can get information from Merriman wherever is most convenient for you.

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It’s no secret that businesses make mistakes. We’ve made our fair share of them, and we took a long, hard look back at these mistakes to see if there was something we could learn.

We realized that we were making decisions with the best of intentions, but within a small vacuum. Often times, these changes were spurred by client feedback, but that feedback represented only a small portion of the client base, or wasn’t really the root-cause of the client concerns.

To keep this from happening again, we made a substantial commitment about two years ago – to regularly survey our clients and collect feedback about how well they think we’re doing. About once a year, we send each and every client who has access to email a brief electronic survey. While we do ask a few specific questions, we often find the most benefit in providing the opportunity to give open-ended feedback. It allows our clients to start a conversation about what would make working with Merriman an even better experience. (more…)

Recently my wife and I took our children to Disneyland. From Seattle the trip is a quick two-hour plane ride and a short ride to the resort. As fast as the trip appears on paper, I always worry about taking young children on a plane where there is no place to go if that all-too-familiar tantrum occurs.

With that thought in mind, we boarded the plane early to allow the children to get settled into their surroundings before we have to take off. As the kids were working out who was going to sit by the window, I sat in my aisle seat across from them and wondered who would be joining me by my window. (more…)

Is it time for your review?  If that means a drive into the city for you, then why not make a day of it?

There’s the usual shopping and lunch, but how about a stroll through a park? Seattle neighborhoods offer some wonderfully-urban, free outdoor experiences. Here are two of my favorites.

Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park has been around since the late 1800s, but it was between 1904 and 1909 that the famous Olmsted Brothers formalized the design with lily ponds, a wading pool and a music pavilion. The park is also known for its conservatory, built in 1912, which houses flowering plants from all over the world and a collection of orchids (over 600 varieties). (more…)

Here at Merriman we take our commitment and responsibilities for managing your investments earnestly.  Because remaining true to our commitment for sustainability and being a carbon neutral firm is so important to us, we made a responsible decision when updating our logo. You may see some variation in our stationary when you receive correspondence from us in the near future. Our logo on our letterhead may be updated, but you may see our old logo on the envelopes. Rest assured this is a conscious choice on our part because we feel passionately about not wasting resources. Whenever possible we reduce, reuse and recycle – it is not a catch phrase around here, it is something we all value and live by.

We ask that you please pardon us if we are wearing mismatched socks for a little while. We plan to responsibly exhaust our existing supply while integrating our new supply of printed materials.

Working at Merriman has many great benefits because of the importance this company places on taking care of its employees creating a truly unique work environment. But one benefit that is often forgotten about is the fact that we also get to take advantage of our own services. It is so awesome to work at an office so rich with knowledge. I love sitting down with my own advisor, Phuc Dang, to go over my savings and expenses. Having a third party review my financial situation is extremely helpful – Phuc always finds a little something I missed, and can point out ways to use or save my money more wisely. (more…)

Everywhere I have worked, I have had the pleasure of talking directly with clients. About 18 months ago, we embarked on an ambitious program of surveying our clients on a recurring basis. When we launched the program I set out to call everyone who responded to the survey to, at the very least, thank them for taking the time to share their thoughts with us.

Most of my calls were a joy to make. It was fun to bask in the happy, supportive comments of our satisfied clients. I learned how much they enjoy working with their advisor, listening to our podcast or enjoying the freedom that comes from having a partner to help you manage your money.

This process also gave me a chance to learn some fantastic things from the lengthy conversations I had with the handful of dissatisfied clients who responded. Here are some gems from those calls:

• Financial professionals measure relative performance and, while that is important, it’s ACTUAL performance that puts your child through college or allows you to retire. (more…)