Retirement Advisor Confidence Outlook

The Retirement Advisor Confidence Outlook (RACO) is a monthly index published on Financial Planning that surveys hundreds of financial advisors to understand their forward-looking perspective on the economy and plans for client asset allocations. This index provides a snapshot of the economic landscape and provides a peer view into client advising choices for the coming month.

In this index, advisors are asked to share their outlook on six core economic indicators: the overall economy, the global economic system, government policy, their asset allocation, their client's risk tolerance, and their practice performance. From these responses, a score is developed to take into account the balance of positive and negative outlooks. These scores are then averaged to create the overall outlook score: a value from -100 to 100 with -100 being the most pessimistic outlook possible, 0 being a neutral outlook, and 100 being the most optimistic outlook possible. This index is sponsored monthly in partnership with ADP.

The RACO (June, 2023 – present) is a reimagined version of the Retirement Advisor Confidence Index (June, 2011 – May, 2023).

From October to February, retirement advisors were feeling increasingly bullish about the economy. Then politics got in the way.