The rarified setting of the University Club on New York's Fifth Avenue was the setting for the Forum on Investor Advice's Symposium on The Impact of the Internet on the Advisor-Client Relationship.

The main event was the release of the results of a study by Neuwirth Research about the effect of the Internet on advice. The study found that investors are making room for both advisors and the Internet. 71% of investors who use advisors also conduct financial activities on the Internet.

The study also found that while many people use the Internet to obtain quotes and to track their portfolio, advisors remain the primary source of investment advice for the vast majority (about 70%) of investors.

The study asked people to predict their future behavior, and and those predictions showed that the present patterns would remain constant. For example, only 8% of current investors use the Internet as their primary source of of advice when planning for financial goals, and the stidy projects that the number will only rise to 20% in three years.

After the results were presented, a discussion took place among the panelists. They were: Jennifer Bolt, vice president of Franklin Templeton's e-business division; Brian Hollander, founder of DirectAdvice.com; Allen Jones, senior vice president for Merrill Lynch; and John Payne, analyst for Cerulli Associates. The moderator was John Metaxas of CNN.

The ensuing discussion ranged all over the financial services industry. Random highlights:

• Investment professionals are getting more transparency in mutual fund holdings and trading, but individual investors haven't felt it yet, and aren't likely to do so in the near future (Bolt and Payne);
  
• Companies are more willing to get non-proprietary content and data from outside sources (Bolt);
  
• Despite advances in the Internet, the best advice still comes from personal one-on-one interaction (Jones and, surprisingly, Hollander);
  
• Men have adopted the Internet earlier than women, and are more comfortable with technology (Neuwirth).

 

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