Affluent Investors Want Advisers’ Investment Research

What’s attractive to the crowd with more $500,000 in investable assets? Investment research from their advisers, apparently.

According to new report from the Spectrem Group, a whopping 73% of affluent investors agreed that investment research is important to them. And in a positive sign for advisers, that figure rose to 80% for affluent investors who called themselves adviser-dependent or adviser-assisted.

“Investment research, it seems, has made a comeback among the nation’s wealthiest investors,” said George H. Walper, Jr., president of Spectrem Group, of the six year period since the equity analyst research scandals on Wall Street.

That said, affluent investors are not interested in investment research from third-party providers. Only 15% of the group from the study agreed that third-party research was more trustworthy than research from an adviser.

The reports that advisers put out from their own firms are viewed much more favorably among this group, Walper said.

“Affluent investors are more than happy to welcome some professional research,” and most trust the reports from their own adviser’s firm more than reports put out by third-party providers, Walper said.

Called “The Role of Investment Research,” the survey included 500 affluent investors and was conducted between April and May.