Reflecting on a year dominated by Covid-19

It was 4:00 p.m. on a March afternoon, and I was concerned I was being dramatic. I was walking across town, having dialed into a call as I walked, because I was getting anxious about this coronavirus thing and didn’t want to take the subway. I remember telling my wife as I left, “I’m sure I’m being ridiculous.” 

Later that night, my concerns about overreacting were calmed when the decision was made to close our New York office, thus ending my brief dalliance with a Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to NYC commute. 

The challenge with reflecting on what’s happened since then is that it is all so intensely personal, yet it has hit every person. In this issue, we do our best to capture that reality for the various facets of the financial services industry.  

I wasn’t alone in abandoning my commute. As Covid-19 started to spread in the U.S., many employees gave up going into the office and instead worked from home.  

For financial advisers, that move interfered with their usual practice of meeting with clients in their office; it also disrupted the events and in-person meetings that firms had relied on to land new clients.  

THE YEAR OF COVID-19

In a development that’s often cited as one of the pandemic’s silver linings, that shift to working from home forced advisory firms to up their game when it came to technology. Video-conferencing became a normal way to meet with co-workers and clients. Advisers paid more attention to their websites and figured out how to onboard clients using e-signatures. Webinars moved online, as did client events. Nicole Casperson reports that the industry is now ready to tackle the challenge of providing clients with the financial services they need on their smartphones. 

Working from home posed challenges when it came to compliance, especially given all the new technology workers were using. The experts Mark Schoeff Jr. interviewed for his article said that firms had done fairly well, but Schoeff also points to a recent survey showing that only 22% of firms using video-conferencing tools have put in place programs to record and supervise the meetings that occur on the platforms.  

For the market watchers, the year of Covid began with a tumultuous sell-off, but that initial volatility has been followed by a rally that has lifted stocks steadily higher. More recently, as the green shoots of Spring pop forth both literally in the ground and figuratively in the economy, the stock market has seen frenzied trading in stocks like GameStop Corp. that’s been driven by retail investors and social media posts. Bruce Kelly discusses another investing trend over the past year, the proliferation of special purpose acquisition companies. 

Meanwhile, the pandemic meant many Americans found themselves out of work, and for some older people, that came at a crucial time in terms of retirement readiness. Mary Beth Franklin discusses recent data showing both a pickup in early retirements among baby boomers and an increase in the portion of people who expect to work longer because of Covid.
And Emile Hallez looks at the economic lockdown’s impact on small-business owners who were counting on selling their business to finance their retirement. 

Now, as vaccinations become more readily available, the industry faces the question of what comes next. Jeff Benjamin’s story suggests that after a year of working from home, many advisers have come to appreciate the convenience and the time saved on commuting, and they aren’t likely to revert to spending all their time in the office. 

STORIES TO SHARE

My year in the home office has left me appreciating the incredible colleagues I have at IN, as the team has shown consummate professionalism. And I’m particularly grateful for our company’s leadership, as CEO Christine Shaw put our people first throughout this year, reinforcing the value of the people in our business. 

Thanks for reading this special issue, and please let us know how we did on this roundup, and if inclined, feel free to share your stories with me.