Some people are saying direct indexing is nothing but expensive hype designed to push HNW efficiencies on portfolios too small to really support or justify anything but the random walk. We beg to differ. With a direct indexing guide on the horizon, we're obviously convinced that this is the future. But what do YOU think?
A lot of high-profile players in the industry have raised the banner and are proudly announcing that they're ready to help advisors make the leap. Just the other day, for example, Josh Brown was telling me how good it felt that Ritholtz had bit the bullet and deconstructed its client exposure to mass-market ETFs.
That's a $3 billion firm. And elsewhere in the landscape, you've got Morgan Stanley and BlackRock and Pershing and Schwab and Natixis and Morningstar and Vestmark lining up . . . name after name, all grabbing their piece of the conversation.
But buried in all those announcements, the fundamentals get lost. Maybe you're still a little woozy on the essential aspects of what direct indexing is all about. About 70% of the advisors we surveyed on the topic admit that they don't really get the "why" or the "how" or even the "what" going on here.
More Articles
RIA Innovations: Building Independence Without the Learning Curve
When Nelly Mubashi left UBS in 2008, she assembled the infrastructure needed to launch her own RIA from scratch. By 2015, industry colleagues kept asking how to replicate her model. Now RIA Innovations offers that blueprint as a turnkey platform—complete with transparent pricing, flexible contracts, and the kind of institutional support that didn’t exist when Mubashi made the jump herself.
Black Diamond: The TAMP Revolution’s Next Phase Is Personalization at Scale
The TAMP marketplace has reached critical mass, but Kyle Fleming, Director of Product Strategy at SS&C Black Diamond Wealth Solutions, says the story is far from finished. The next phase moves beyond simple outsourcing to something more sophisticated: a mosaic approach that lets advisors retain control while gaining operational leverage. Fleming explains how firms can scale personalized service across generational households without adding headcount—and why workflow, not technology features, determines success.