General Principles/Conduct/Psychology Flashcards
Behavioral Finance: Familiarity
E.g., familiarity with an employer and investing in ER stock because of familiarity only
Behavioral Finance: Loss Aversion
Unwillingness to sell a losing investment in the hopes it will turn around because losses are more painful than gains. (compare Prospect Theory)
Behavioral Finance: Affect Heuristic
Judging something, good or bad, pertains to likes or dislikes of a company based on non-financial issues.
Behavioral Finance: Anchoring
Attaching/Anchoring one’s thoughts to a reference point even if there is no logical relevance or no pertinence to the issue in question; aka conservatism or belief perseverance.
The investor sets a value at the initial point of information (typically their buy price)
Behavioral Finance: Availability Heuristic
Reliance on information that is readily available in one’s memory, thus overweighting recent events or patterns and ignoring longer term trends.
Behavioral Finance: Bounded rationality
Making decisions based on rationality limited by available information, tractability of decision problem, cognitive limitations, time available to make a decision. Seeking a satisfactory solution rather than an optimal one, thus additional information does not lead to an improvement in decision because investor is unable to consider significant amounts of information.
Behavioral Finance: Cognitive Dissonance
Tendency to misinterpret information that is contrary to an existing opinion or only pay attention to information that supports an existing opinion, e.g., exaggerating gains and minimizing/forgetting about losses.
Behavioral Finance: Confirmation Bias
Tendency to filter information and focus on information that supports one’s opinions.
Behavioral Finance: Disposition effect
People seek pride and avoid regret, thus
- sell winners too quickly (confirms correct choice)
- hold losers too long (avoids confirming incorrect choice)
Behavioral Finance: Familiarity Bias
Tendency to overestimate/underestimate the risk of investments with which one is familiar/unfamiliar.
Leads to home bias and single stock concentration.
Behavioral Finance: Gambler’s Fallacy
Based on incorrect understanding of probabilities, investors may sell stock when it has been successful in consecutive trading sessions because they may not believe it is continuing its upward trend.
Behavioral Finance: Herding
Following the herd. Finding comfort in groups/numbers.
Behavioral Finance: Hindsight Bias
Looking back after the fact is known and assuming one can predict the future as readily as the past.
When considering the past, investors tend to suffer from:
- House money effect (take more risk)
- Snakebite effect (take less risk)
- Break-evenitis (take more risk)
Behavioral Finance: Illusion of Control Bias
Tendency to overestimate ability to control events, e.g., sense of control over outcomes one can demonstrably not influence.
Behavioral Finance: Naïve diversification
Common with 401k plans or other employer sponsored retirement plans: idea that one is adequately diversified by investing an equal amount in all of the funds.
Mental accounting can lead to naïve diversification.
Behavioral Finance: Optimism
Can lead to exuberance, which can lead to market bubbles.
Behavioral Finance: Overconfidence Bias
Tendency to listen to oneself, rely on one’s own skills and capabilities to do one’s own homework or make one’s own decisions. This often leads investors to overstate their risk tolerance, overestimate their knowledge, underestimate risks, exaggerate ability to control events and predict outcomes.
Factors leading to overconfidence:
Choice
Task familiarity
Information (confirmation bias)
Active involvement
Past success
Behavioral Finance: Overreaction
Common emotion towards receipt of news or information
Behavioral Finance: Prospect Theory
Tendency to value gains and losses differently. Investors are loss averse, suffer more from a loss of $100 than they benefit from a $100 gain. Examples: Avoiding higher risk investments even if they offer strong risk adjusted returns or over insuring against risks through low deductibles.
Behavioral Finance: Recency
Focusing on short-term past performance, giving too much weight to recent events, leading to faulty predictions that this is how it is always going to be.
Behavioral Finance: Representativeness
Idea that a good company is a good investment without an analysis of the investment
Behavioral Finance: Similarity Heuristic
Used when a decision is made when an apparently similar situation occurs even though the situations may have very different outcomes
CFP Code of Ethics
- Act with honesty, integrity, competence, and diligence
- Act in the client’s best interests
- Exercise due care
- Avoid or disclose and manage conflicts of interest
- Maintain the confidentiality and protect the privacy of client information
- Act in a manner that reflects positively on the financial planning profession and the CFP certification
Economic Forces: Complements
Products that are usually consumed jointly. A decrease in the price of one will cause an increase in the demand of another, e.g., when peanut butter goes on sale, the demand for jelly will increase.
DEC forms of discipline : Private Censure
An unpublished written reproach mailed by the the DEC to a censured respondent
DEC forms of discipline : Public letter of admonition
A written reproach of the respondent’s behavior published in a press release
DEC forms of discipline : Revocation
The termination of a respondent’s right to use the CFP marks. Respondents are permanently barred from applying for or obtaining CFP certification. No appeal is possible.
DEC forms of discipline : Suspension
Respondent is prohibited from using the CFP certification marks, stating or suggesting that they are a CFP professional or holding out to the public as being certified by the CFP Board.
Min. 90 days; Max 5 years
Duties owed to clients at all times
- Integrity
- Competence
- Diligence
- Sound and Objective Professional Judgement
- Professionalism
- Comply with the law
- Confidentiality and Privacy
- Duties when communicating with a client
- Duties when selecting, using and recommending technology
- Refrain from borrowing or lending money and commingling financial assets
Duties owed to clients when providing financial advice that requires planning
- The duties that apply when providing financial advice (without planning)
- The practice standards for the financial planning process
- Information to a client in writing
Duties owed to clients when providing financial advice without planning
- The Duties that apply at all times
- Fiduciary Duty
- Disclose and manage conflicts of interest
- Provide information to a client
- Duties when recommending, engaging, and working with additional persons
Duties owed to clients: Competence
With relevant knowledge and skill to apply that knowledge.
A CFP professional must bring in or advise a client go to an expert with competence in area the advisor lacks
Duties owed to clients: Comply with the law
A CFP professional must comply with the laws, rules and regulations governing professional services. Intentional violation of the Codes & Standards is not permitted
Duties owed to clients: Confidentiality & Privacy
A CFP professional must keep confidential and may not disclose any non-public personal information abut any prospective, current, or former client, except to the CFP
Duties owed to clients: Diligence
Must provide professional services, including responding to reasonable client inquires in a timely and thorough manner
Duties owed to clients: Disclose and Manage conflicts of interest
Applies to material conflicts of interest
Written consent to conflict is not required (oral is acceptable)
Duties owed to clients: Fiduciary Duty
Duty of Loyalty
Duty of Care
Duty of Following Client Instructions
Duties owed to Clients: Integrity
Centered on honesty and candor
Duties owed to clients: Profesionalism
A CFP professional must treat Clients, prospective clients, fellow provisionals, and others with dignity, courtesy, and respect.
Duties owed to clients: Provide information to a a client
Material changes and disciplinary updates/bankruptcy must be disclosed to clients within 90 days
Duties owed to clients: Refrain from borrowing or lending money and commingling financial assets
Exceptions:
- member of the CFP’s immediate family
- Lender is in the business of lending
Never permitted
Client’s financial assets may not be commingled with the CFP professionals’ assets or the firm’s assets.
Duties owed to clients: Selecting, Using ,and recommending technology
A CFP professional must use “reasonable care and judgement” when using technology in a planning engagement. The technology must produce “reliable objects, and appropriate outcomes:
Duties owed to clients: Sound and objective professional judgement
CFP professionals must exercise professional judgement on behalf of the client and may not solicit or accept any gift that could be expected to compromise objectivity
Duties owed to clients: When communicating with a client
Accurate information in a manner and format that client reasonably may be expected to understand
Duties owed to clients: When recommending, engaging and working with additional persons
Basis for recommendation must be reasonable and any conflict of interest must be properly disclosed and managed.
Duties owed to clients: When representing compensation method
Fee only - No commission, trails, etc. Flat fee, or AUM only
Fee based - primarily compensated through fees, but has some commission based products, or products that have a trail.
Sales related compensation - primarily commission based
Fiduciary Duty: Duty of Care
Act with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence that a prudent professional would exercise in light of the client’s goals, risk tolerance, objectives, and circumstances.
Fiduciary Duty: Duty of Loyalty
- Place the interest of the Client above the interests of the CFP professional’s firm
- Avoid conflicts of interest or fully disclose material conflicts of interest to the client, obtain the client’s informed consent and properly manage the conflict
- Act without regard to the financial or other interests of the CFP professional the CFP professional’s firm or any individual or entity other than the client which means a CFP professional acting under a conflict of interest continues to have a duty to act in the best interests of the Client and place the client’s interest above the CFP professsional.
Fiduciary Duty: Duty to Follow Client Instructions
Comply with the terms of the client engagement and follow all directions of the clients that are reasonable and lawful.
Financial Advice
A. Communication that, based on its content, context, and presentation, would reasonably be viewed as a recommendation that the client take or refrain from taking a particular course of action with respect to:
- The development or implantation of a financial plan
- The value of or the advisability of investing in, purchasing, holding, gifting, or selling financial assets
- Investment policies or strategies, portfolio composition, the management of financial assets, or other financial matters
- The selections and retention of other persons to provide financial or professional services to the client
B. Exercise of discretionary authority over the financial assets of a client.
Exam Tip: the more individually tailored the communication, the more likely you are giving Financial Advice and are thus bound by Fiduciary Duty!
Financial Planning
Collaborative process that helps maximize a client’s potential for meeting life goals through financial advice that integrates relevant elements of the client’s personal and financial circumstances.
Heuristic
Any approach to problem-solving that employs a more practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal or rational, but is sufficient for reaching short-term goals or an approximation, such as rules of thumb, educated guesses, trial & error.
Heuristics reduce the cognitive load of decision making, which allows biases to cloud objectivity.
In which step of the financial planning process do you analyze the client’s current course of action?
Step 3: Analyzing the client’s current course of action and potential alternative course(s) of action.
Behavioral Asset Pricing Model
Determines the expected returns of a stock using Beta, book to market ratios, market capitalization ratios, stock momentum, the investor’s likes and dislikes about the stock or company, social responsibility factors, status factors, and more.
Marginal utility
Additional benefit (utility) received from consumption of an additional unit of a good. As the rate of consumption increases, the marginal utility derived from consuming additional units will decline. “Diminishing marginal utility”
Mental accounting
the different values a person places on the same amount of money, based on subjective criteria, often with detrimental results (e.g., tax refund is often treated as “found” money rather than a “refund” that belonged to the taxpayer all along)
Price elasticity
Measures the quantity demanded of a good in response to changes in that good’s price
A good is elastic when its quantity demanded responds greatly to price changes (consumer discretionary)
A good is inelastic when its quantity demanded responds little to price changes (gasoline)
Real GDP excludes
Imports
Inflation
Transactions where money changes hands but no new goods or services are produced
Income of US citizens working abroad
Profits earned by US companies in foreign countries
Real GDP includes
Market value of all final goods and services produced within an economy
Income of foreigners working in the US
Profits that foreign companies earn in the US
GDP = C + I + G + (X-M)
Or GDP = C + I + G + NE
Where C = consumer spending
I = investments
G = government spending
X-M = excess of exports over imports (also referred to as NE for Net Exports)
Standards of Conduct - Duties owed to Firms and Subordinates
- Use reasonable care when supervising
- Comply with lawful objectives of CFP Professional’s firm
- Provide notice of public discipline
Standards of conduct: Duties owed to the CFP board
- Refrain from adverse conduct
- Reporting
- Provide Narrative statement
- Cooperation
- Compliance with Terms and Conditions of
- Certification and Trademark License
Substitutes
Increase in the price of one will cause an increase in the demand for the other, e.g., sharp increase in price of oil, gas, or propane would likely cause increase in price of firewood.
The Financial Planning Process Step 1
Understanding the client’s personal and financial circumstances
- obtain quantitative and qualitative information
- analyze information
- address incomplete information
The financial planning process step 2
Identifying and selecting goals
- Identify potential goals
- help the clients select and prioritize goals
The financial planning process step 3
Analyzing the client’s current course of action and potential alternative course(s) of action
The financial planning process step 4
Developing the financial planning recommendations
For each recommendation the financial professional must consider
- Assumptions and estimates used to develop the recommendations
- Basis for making the recommendation
- timing and priority of the recommendation
- whether the recommendation is independent or must be implemented with another recommendation
The financial planning process Step 5
Presenting the financial planning recommendation(s)
For each recommendation the CFP professional must:
- present to the clients the selected recommendations and information that was required to consider when developing the recommendations
The financial planning process step 6
Implementing the financial planning recommendations
- address implementation responsibilities
- identify, analyze, and select actions, products, and services
- recommend one or more actions, products, and services for implementation
- select and implement actions, products, or services
The financial planning process step 7
Monitoring progress and updating
- establish monitoring and updating responsibilities
- monitor the client’s progress
- obtain current qualitative and quantitative information
- update goals, recommendations, or implantation decisions
What are the three categories of adverse conduct that relate to CFP certification fitness standards?
- Conduct Deemed Unacceptable
- Conduct Deemed A Presumptive Bar
- Other Adverse Conduct
What category of adverse conduct would a felony conviction for tax fraud or other tax-related crimes be subject to?
Conduct deemed unacceptable
Unacceptable
What category of adverse conduct would a felony conviction for non-violent crimes (including perjury) within the last five years be subject to?
Presumptive Bar