July 21, 2018
I am in support of the Commission proposing to enhance investment advisor regulation. In particular, requiring advisers that have fiduciary responsibilities to clients to clearly and explicitly convey all potential conflict of interest, is exceedingly important in these relationships.
Over the past 40 years I have had numerous conversations with financial advisors who represented Prudential, TIAA, Charles Schwab, Wells Fargo, Benjamin Edwards, and others. To my best recollection, none of these advisers ever disclosed any conflicts of interest. Some decisions based on these conversations would have been quite different had I knowledge of what I now understand to be meaningful conflicts of interest. Some of these decisions have harmed me. I now know to expect conflicts of interest and how to ask about them. The proposed regulations may well have prevented me from acquiring this knowledge the hard way. Consumers need this protection.
Gary Hobbs