Talking Wealth

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Josh Brown is joined by economist and author Allison Schrager to discuss her new book Worth the Risk and why Americans have become more risk-averse even as the world has become safer and more economically abundant. They break down why the things that feel safest—like holding cash and avoiding the stock market—can create risks of their own, how excessive caution c...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Ben Carlson is joined by Nick Maggiulli of Of Dollars and Data to discuss the growing popularity of tax-aware long/short strategies and when they actually make sense for investors. They break down tax-loss harvesting, the costs and risks that come with leverage and shorting, and why tax deferral shouldn’t be confused with tax avoidance. Plus, why investors hate p...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Michael Batnick is joined by David Armstrong from WealthManagement.com to discuss two stories that reveal the risks of building your business on platforms you don’t control. They break down the controversy surrounding the Forbes advisor rankings, why major firms are pulling back, and Schwab’s decision to raise the minimum for its advisor referral program to $5 mi...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Ben Carlson is joined by Will Bergen from Canvas to discuss the Canvas Managed Options program to break down how advisors can use managed options strategies to address real-world client needs—from generating incremental cash flow and managing downside risk to navigating concentrated stock positions. We explore how covered-call and hedged-equity strategies work, w...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Michael Batnick sits down with Robb Baldwin, CEO of TradePMR, to discuss the evolution of the RIA custody business and what comes next now that TradePMR is part of Robinhood. Robb shares the story behind founding TradePMR, the types of independent advisors the platform was built to serve, and how Robinhood’s entrance into wealth management changes the competitive...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Joseph Moore, author of How to Get Rich in American History, joins Ben Carlson to discuss 300 years of financial advice. What works, what doesn’t, and how our ideas about building wealth have changed over time. They also discuss real estate as a wealth-building tool, when it makes sense to sell versus hold, how real estate compares with stocks, and why your perso...

How much money do you actually need to start an RIA? On this episode of Talking Wealth, Michael Batnick asked Tobias Salinger, Chief Correspondent at Financial Planning, who has probably talked to more first year firm owners than anyone alive. He wrote a 30 part series on the whole thing, from launch to exit. They covered the stuff nobody tells you before you leave. What it costs on day one. How l...

Is the traditional 60/40 portfolio too conservative for retirement? On this episode of Ben with Benefits, Ben Carlson sits down with Bob Pozen, Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan, former executive at Fidelity and MFS, and bestselling author of Extreme Productivity, to discuss his controversial 90/10 retirement portfolio framework. They debate how much risk retirees really need to take, sequence-of-retur...

ETFs have completely transformed how we invest for our clients. Cheaper, more tax-efficient, more transparent — it's been one of the great wins for investors over the last twenty-five years. But folks, we are not in Kansas anymore. The same wrapper that gave us three basis point index funds is now giving us double-levered single stocks, funds that hold literal sports bets — there's a filing right...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Ben Carlson sits down with Brian Portnoy, founder and CEO of Shaping Wealth and author of The Geometry of Wealth, to discuss the psychology behind great financial advice. They explore how advisors can improve their own decision-making, coach clients through uncertainty, and use behavioral finance to build stronger relationships. They also dive into AI's growing r...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Josh Brown sits down with Onur Erzan, President of AllianceBernstein, to discuss what it really takes to serve America's ultra-high-net-worth families. They explore how wealth management changes at the $200 million level, why investment performance alone isn't enough, the growing importance of succession planning, governance, and multi-generational wealth transfe...

Jon Stein founded Betterment — one of the first companies to deliver real financial advice to the mass affluent at scale. Now he's back with a new company, Warmer, a platform for helping people find the right human financial advisor. It's a fascinating moment to build it, with AI increasingly able to deliver quality advice to that same mass affluent client. So where do human advisors fit in — and...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Ben Carlson is joined by David Lau, founder and CEO of DPL Financial Partners. They discuss the evolving role of insurance and annuities in financial planning, why many advisors remain wary of these products, how annuities can help manage retirement income and longevity risk, and the impact AI could have on the future of the insurance industry. For more from Talk...

There's never been a more disruptive moment in wealth management — and few people are shaping it more directly than my guest this week. Jason Wenk is the founder and CEO of Altruist, the modern custodian built exclusively for RIAs that's grown into one of the largest custodians in the country, serving nearly 5,000 advisory firms. But the conversation everyone's having right now is about AI. When A...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Josh Brown and Sarah Solomon discuss why financial planners are reporting record-high compensation and job satisfaction, Robinhood's aggressive expansion into wealth management and advisor recruiting, and how SpaceX employees are teaming up to negotiate lower advisory fees ahead of the company's anticipated IPO. This episode is sponsored by TEMA. Learn more about...

SpaceX just filed to go public, and this isn't just another IPO — it's shaping up to be the biggest one in history. The company is targeting a valuation around $1.75 trillion and looking to raise as much as $75 billion, which would make it roughly three times the size of the largest U.S. IPO on record. It's set to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, with June 12th cited as the expected listi...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, we’re going to talk about one of the biggest challenges advisors face in portfolio construction: How do you improve diversification and add alternative return streams without sacrificing your core equity and bond exposure?  Jeremy Schwartz from WisdomTree is here to talk about capital efficiency in portfolio management, how to think about the intelligent use of l...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Michael Batnick is joined by Brent Sullivan to discuss the rise of tax-aware long-short investing and how it’s changing wealth management. They cover direct indexing, 130/30 and 250/150 strategies, why traditional tax-loss harvesting dries up in bull markets, the risks advisors may be overlooking, and why firms like Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab Corpora...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Downtown Josh Brown is joined by Manish Khatta, CEO of Potomac Fund Management, to discuss what it really takes to build a modern asset management firm in today’s advisory landscape. They talk about growing Potomac from a struggling boutique into a $3 billion powerhouse without outside capital or acquisitions, the “content bazooka” strategy that helped the firm b...

On this episode of talking Wealth, Michael Kitces joins Michael Batnick to separate what's real from what's hype in AI's impact on wealth management. Is technical expertise really being commoditized, or is this robo advisor redux? They discuss the future of an industry that is changing faster than it wants to admit, but maybe not in the way everyone assumes. This episode is sponsored by YCharts. T...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Ben Carlson is joined by Joe Mallen, CEO of Modelist, to discuss how financial advisors can scale their investment process while maintaining control. They cover how Modelist helps advisors build and manage custom portfolios, how it differs from traditional Turnkey Asset Management Platforms (TAMPs), and the role of direct indexing, reporting, and AI in modern por...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Josh Brown is joined by Louis Diamond, CEO of Diamond Consultants, to break down the surge in advisor movement, with over 11,000 advisors switching firms in 2025. They discuss what’s driving the trend, where top teams are landing, and whether a “winning model” even exists anymore. The conversation also covers what 2026 could look like, the impact of the LPL/Commo...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Ben Carlson is joined by Ehren Stanhope, a key leader behind OSAM’s Canvas platform, to break down how investors can create real tax alpha. They discuss OSAM’s evolution from a quant shop to a full portfolio solution for advisors, the growing appeal of direct and custom indexing, and why the concept “clicks” once you understand it. The conversation covers tax los...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Michael Batnick is joined by John Giovannucci to discuss a shift few in wealth management say out loud: has the advisor’s role drifted away from doing the actual work? For years, strong markets made it easier to look smart and harder to tell skill from environment. Along the way, more of the thinking behind portfolios was outsourced to platforms, products, and ma...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Michael Batnick is joined by Stephen Caruso, Associate Director of Wealth Management at Cerulli Associates, to unpack the rise of the RIA and the growing pains that come with scaling it. They discuss insights from Cerulli’s The RIA Marketplace: Solving for Scale, including asset growth across channels, whether clients differ between wirehouses and RIAs, and what’...