New Web Service Provides Advice for 401k Participants
BOSSIER CITY, LA, April 20, 2009 -- Plan participants looking for 401k investment advice that embraces a fiduciary standard can now find just such a resource online. A new Internet service, The 401kAdvisory (http://www.401kAdvisory.com), provides investment recommendations to individuals seeking 401k advice tailored to their particular situation and risk tolerance.
The 401kAdvisory analyzes a client's statement and risk profile and then prepares personalized advice, delivered via email, for a one-time fee of $49.95.
The website has been launched by Hal M. Bundrick, CFP®, a Certified Financial Planner™ professional, and is a service of The Client First, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor, his independent, fee-only financial consultancy. As a Registered Investment Advisor, Bundrick is legally bound to a fiduciary standard -- the highest standard in the industry -- always having to place his clients' interests first.
Bundrick, formerly associated with the Merrill Lynch Global Private Client Group and JPMorgan Private Wealth Management, has coordinated the retirement benefits for retirees and pre-retirees of companies such as American Airlines, ChevronTexaco, Lowes, Home Depot, AEP, Albemarle, AT&T, Domtar, Schering-Plough, Marathon Oil, Exxon-Mobil, and International Paper, among many others, as well as state and federal governments. He has also managed group employee retirement plans for firms located throughout more than a half dozen states in the South and Midwest.
Now that experience and expertise is available to individual investors, without on-going fees, asset minimums -- and most importantly, without bias.
"I have hosted educational meetings for employer-sponsored retirement plans where I would face a room full of blank stares from the employees," says Bundrick. "I would talk about the investment basics: risk profiles, asset allocation, time-horizon -- trying my best to distill all the Wall Street jargon down to a simple, understandable process -- and after all my efforts a large group of attendees would usually gather around me at the end of the meeting saying, 'here's my paperwork -- now what should I do?' I realized that a lot of people are just not wired to do it themselves."
After spending nearly twenty years as a business and marketing consultant, Bundrick decided to focus his attention on developing an easy-to-implement investment process for investors, putting particular focus on retirement planning the past nine years.
"It became very clear to me that there was a need for a Web-based 'do-it-for-me' service," Bundrick adds. "At one investment firm I worked with, smart people -- people with decades of experience in financial services -- would bring me their 401k statements asking for help. Even they didn't have a clue how to invest their most important retirement assets."
"We don't use boiler-plate, software-delivered, canned advice," he notes. "This is a prudent investment process offering the same thoughtful recommendations that a Certified Financial Planner™ professional would offer if he or she were sitting across the table from the client. We analyze our client's 401k retirement plan statements, offer a review of their current holdings and suggestions for improvements, based on a nine-question risk-profile questionnaire. We also take into consideration the current economic environment, the prevailing investment cycle and carefully analyze existing and potential investment holdings."
"We look at the performance of the investment assets and take a hard look at internal expenses and fee structures," Bundrick adds. "Because we are hired by the investor and don't work for the employer -- or get paid commissions for our recommendations -- we can offer true objectivity."
Bundrick also notes that the 401k advice service can be offered by plan sponsors to employees at a group discount rate, through private portal access to the site. The 401kAdvisory.com also offers an hourly consultancy rate for employers that wish to sponsor in-person one-on-one sessions with plan participants on-site.
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