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Press Release
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Salient's Richard Stone Warns Wealth Advisors to Avoid "Home Country" Bias Marin County Executive Remarks Highlight National Conference San Rafael, CA - August 13, 2007 - Richard Stone, CEO/founder of Salient Wealth Management, told a group of prominent wealth advisors that “home country bias” was a major risk to avoid when designing investment plans for their clients. Stone recently chaired a national, two-day conference of wealth advisors in Chicago. In his remarks, he emphasized that current data and studies had shown that the tendency to direct investments toward securities in an investor’s home country cut significantly into potential long term gains . “The academic data clearly demonstrates that ‘home country’ bias exists,” said Stone, who founded his firm in 1983. “While investors may feel comfortable selecting a portfolio heavily weighted toward their own country, it is often a case of a lot of local knowledge producing very little additional return.” Stone, named by Worth Magazine as one of the Top 100 Wealth Advisors in the U.S five times in the past six years, delivered the opening remarks, chaired a panel and summarized the panel discussions each day. “It was quite clear from the presentations,” said Stone, “of a growing recognition that the results of ignoring globalization in investments may have potentially harmful results in the form of missed opportunities. At the same time, investors looking for the ‘silver bullet’ are also going to be disappointed.” The Conference (Optimized Income & Product Solutions for Retirement Investments) brought together wealth managers who direct billions of dollars of client investments. “It was an extremely impressive group, most of whom focus on the ‘Baby Boom’ generation. These are investors now grappling with how to establish financial plans that provide both for their heirs, while spinning off enough income to meet their own rapidly approaching retirement needs. “At Salient, we deal daily with senior level executives who are decision points in their lives and careers,” Stone said. “Successful in business, they are sometimes contemplating their financial situation as a broad palate for the first time. That is our expertise, looking at the entire picture. “In doing that, we have for many years built portfolios with international components in anticipation of globalization,” he said. “That approach has paid off consistently.” Stone has been engaged in investments and financial planning in the San Francisco Bay Area for 38 years. At Salient, he works closely with clients to develop investment strategies and manage their portfolios. He was one of the initial 42 CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM certificants credentialed by the College for Financial Planning in 1973, and has taught every course required for CFP® certification. As a member of the IAFP national Board of Directors, he also wrote the first Code of Ethics for the financial planning industry. Stone and his firm were recently named third on the list of top wealth managers in the Bay Area, published by the San Francisco Business Times. Salient was also included on the national list of top wealth managers in Wealth Manager Magazine and has been named by Goldline Research as one of the top advisers in California in a study published in the current Forbes Magazine. About Salient Wealth Management Salient Wealth Management (www.salientwealth.com) is one of the oldest privately-held wealth management firms in the Bay Area. Founded by Richard Stone, a 38-year veteran of the investment business, Stone established the company in Marin County in 1983. Salient currently has more than $450 million in assets under management and serves a clientele of Northern California executives and their families with a minimum of $2 million to invest. |