Understanding the SEC's New Marketing Rules for Financial Advisors: Marie Swift, Robert Sofia and Sam Brownell Weigh In

Financial advisors everywhere are celebrating the new SEC guidelines related to marketing communications. Ho, ho, ho and Happy New Year to all who have been asking for these updates - myself included. Sneaking in right after Christmas and just before a change of administration, the SEC has announced an important rule change that affects all financial advisors. In particular, the SEC has updated a rule that has not been touched in decades and was increasingly out of touch with reality.  The change has to do with marketing communications, particularly those through Internet channels.

Sam Brownell, CFA, of Stratus Wealth Advisors, Robert Sofia of Snappy Kraken, and I (Marie Swift) provided comments for Ryan Neal, a reporter at Financial Planning magazine, but not all of them made it into that article so I am including the full comments from the three of us here on my blog because I think these are important distinctions. I'll also include a summary of the new rules below.

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