Barry Ritholtz, Columnist

This Needs Saying. Helping Retirement Savers Isn't Like Slavery.

Look past the poorly chosen words of one financier when considering the Labor Department's new fiduciary rule.

October 19, 2016 at 5:48 PM UTC

Barry Ritholtz is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is chairman and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and was previously chief market strategist at Maxim Group. He is the author of “Bailout Nation.”

Not really.
Source: DeAgostini/getty images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

This past weekend, while waiting in a bank, I happened to overhear a broker from one of the country’s largest firms try to explain to his client why the U.S. Department of Labor’s new fiduciary rule was so terrible. It was an unpersuasive exercise in self-interest and the client was having none of it. “Why can’t you put my best interests first?,” he asked.

The fiduciary rule, which requires financial advisers to place the interests of clients with retirement-saving accounts ahead of their own, will be implemented sometime next year, assuming there are no additional delays. That also assumes that Donald Trump -- now polling on average about 7 percent behind Hillary Clinton -- doesn't win the presidential election.