The future is here — and advisers’ opportunities await

The floodgates are open. The oldest baby boomers began turning 65 this year. For 19 years, an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 Americans a day are expected to reach that milestone.

For financial advisers, this can be both a challenge and an opportunity — a challenge if your clients haven’t saved enough for their golden years and an opportunity for those who want to take advantage of this expanding market.

Advisers will have to figure out how they are going to adapt their practices to this rising tide of retirees. Given the low savings rate, the lack of market returns over the past decade, the low-interest-rate environment and a host of other factors, advisers also will have to figure out how they are going to help their clients manage their retirement.

This special report approaches the retirement puzzle on two fronts. First, we look at the ramifications from a practice management standpoint.

How will advisers replace the assets going out the door as their clients begin spending down their nest eggs? Will advisers be able to take control of their clients’ 401(k) assets?And does it make sense to re-create yourself as a retirement specialist?

We also look at the investment challenges that advisers face as they look for new income strategies and ways to hedge market risk.

We talk to advisers about some of the uncomfortable conversations that they are having with clients about curtailing spending and the need to work beyond the normal retirement age. As one adviser quipped, “If the numbers aren’t working, I tell them they’re going to have to make more money, spend less money or die sooner.”

Finally, we present the results of our annual adviser retirement survey. InvestmentNews polled 780 advisers, and the answers to many of the survey questions accompany the stories.

During periods of profound change, the world can seem unsettling. Old verities no longer hold and new developments make little sense. The world of retirement income is in such a period.

As we show throughout this special report, the surge of retiring baby boomers is fundamentally changing the financial advice business, presenting both challenges and opportunities. This does not mean that everyone must move in lockstep or make wholesale revisions in the way they conduct their business. But advisers who ignore or resist the way the world is changing could be left on the sidelines.

Conversely, those who embrace demographic and market trends no doubt will succeed. As the new picture of retirement income advice emerges, the winners will be those who devise compelling strategies that capitalize on those trends.