Biggest stories of 2022: Financial Planning's covers from the last year

January 2, 2023 2:30 PM

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors.

Financial Planning started its print year off with a look at the role private equity is playing in wealth management, and then the rise of direct indexing. Along the way, we covered tech priorities, the changing role of brokers and the ways in which cluster bomb makers can be ESG-friendly, among others.

In all, the FP staff gave readers nine deep dives that made the cover of our print product in 2022. Scroll down our cardshow to see those stories. We've also provided the links to the full issues of each magazine.

PE's big catch: RIAs. Is the haul sustainable?

In a modern-day gold rush for the wealth management's industry's fastest-growing and most profitable niche, private equity is increasingly coming for RIAs. Sophisticated funds with billions of dollars to invest and global reach are fighting each other for stakes in companies, pushing up prices, striking quick deals and altering the landscape of financial planning for advisors and their clients.

Read:

PE's big catch: RIAs. Is the haul sustainable?

Print edition:

January/February 2022

The rise of direct indexing

After operating in relative obscurity for 30 years, an obscure strategy for the ultrawealthy that became a $1 trillion opportunity for the masses. Direct indexing suddenly became table stakes for financial institutions, which expect product customization to power the next generation of growth. Even if built automatically, direct indexing technology gives firms the ability to say they can give every customer, regardless of asset size, a custom portfolio tailored to their exact specifications.

Read:

Direct Indexing: The customization revolution

Print edition:

March 2022

Falling behind the risk

Wealth managers have thus far reported a lower rate of cybersecurity incidents than firms from other areas of financial services. However, attacks and breaches in that sector are growing quickly, according to experts who say advisors and firms shouldn't wait for client information to be compromised to take basic steps that banks and insurers have already adopted much more widely.

Read:

What advisory firms should be doing on cybersecurity

Print edition:

April 2022

Betting big on tech

Attitudes, priorities and pain points related to creating a future-ready technology strategy were the focus of a survey of U.S. business leaders conducted throughout February by Financial Planning's parent company Arizent. Participants shared thoughts on the factors that inform decision-making, challenges they face and the benefits of successfully leveraging technology. The study also gauged confidence in those efforts and provided a snapshot of how far along respondents believe they are on their transformation journeys.

Read:

Betting big on tech to future-proof wealth management

Print edition:

May 2022

The ESG industrial complex

As corporate America scrambles to quantify its efforts to do good and index providers churn out ever more benchmarks, it's raising two elephant-in-the-room questions: What exactly are the social and financial merits of the scores, whose purpose is to catalog the financial risks a company faces over its environmental, social and governance practices? And are retail and institutional investors growing skeptical of the entire premise?

Read:

How the ESG industrial complex blurs the lines for do-good investors

Print edition:

June 2022

Elevating your RIA’s brand

Questions about marketing in advisors' practices can prove revealing for potential missed opportunities, areas where external professionals could be of service, the need to engage with historically excluded groups of Americans and even an internal examination of your own business, according to nine planners and other experts who spoke with Financial Planning. In today's fast-changing, increasingly online age, ignoring the topic entirely isn't an option.

Read:

How an RIA's marketing fuels inclusion, growth and branding

Print edition:

July/August 2022

Scarlet B?

The RIA side of wealth management has grown to dominate the industry, where the conventional wisdom is that brokerages are going the way of the VCR and the tape cassette. A burgeoning number of firms ranging from startups to some of the largest wealth managers in the business are proving otherwise. Their brokerages clear certain transactions and retain relationships that could be going somewhere else without them and — the new breed of brokers argues — might be served at a lower standard of care, if not for their existence.

Read:

Brokerages are morphing, not going away

Print edition:

September 2022

Undefined, undercounted, underserved

The blurriness that shrouds a precise regulatory definition of financial planning and the number of people receiving such services matters to the tens of millions of Americans who are clients of financial planning firms and the financial advisors who serve them. The problem is that the SEC has been asking advisors more questions about their planning services without saying exactly what it means by "financial planning." In that vacuum, giant firms with the best marketing can make the most money without providing what the profession views as true financial planning.

Read:

Financial planning clients are undefined, undercounted and underserved

Print edition:

October 2022

Year-end tax moves: Peaks and troughs

While monitoring a portfolio for opportunities to reduce tax bills is increasingly a year-round exercise, the annual ritual of ramping up scrutiny in the final months of the year. With stocks down roughly 17% as of mid-November and economic uncertainty leading many advisors to believe recession is not an if, but a when, certain workhorse strategies now have a twist. Here's what financial planners can be doing.

Read:

Year-end tax strategies acquire a twist

Print edition:

November/December 2022