When “Stay the Course” Isn’t Enough: Helping Clients Understand the Path Ahead

The Challenge of Delivering Advice in Uncertain Capital Markets: The capital-markets landscape is brimming with questions, and external and geopolitical shocks are emerging more often. This poses a stiff challenge for advisors: guiding portfolios to support increasingly dynamic retirement plans. The stakes are high. With longer lives, finish lines are distant and there are no restarts. Emotion adds complexity: advisors must help clients overcome short-term impulses that may lead them off track.

The AllianceBernstein Advisor Institute’s Ken Haman leads a wide-ranging conversation with AB Chief Market Strategist Rick Brink, exploring how the world of behavioral finance intersects with the challenges of today’s uncertain capital markets, including:

• How to reframe familiar advice to overcome client biases
• Practical ways to communicate sequence risk, the impact of drawdowns and portfolio construction in service of broader investment goals
• The key forces shaping capital markets today, their future implications, and how advisors can help clients participate while minimizing potential risks