The Age Advantage

Why grandparents have more job opportunities than babysitting

Ric Edelman: It's Monday, August 14th. Are you going to be a babysitting grandparent? 67 million grandparents are in the US, 35% of them, a third, are still working. Also, parenting styles clash. Half of grandparents say they've disagreed with their children about how to handle tantrums, mealtime and screen time. Maybe better not to retire after all. I mean, if you have retired, maybe go back to work. Sorry, kids. I'd love to help, but I have a job. Can't babysit for you. And if you're thinking you can't get a job after you retire.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is asking retired bank examiners to come back to work. FDIC is doing the same thing. Over the past five years, regulators have 3% fewer workers, while bank assets are up 37%. OCC examiners visit 1,100 banks every year. They need more workers, and so they're turning to older people for help. And don't think you have to go to work full time. The four day workweek is gaining popularity. More and more studies and experiences showing including the newest, was just completed after 18 months in the US, Canada, UK and Ireland. Dozens of companies from design agencies to manufacturers to nonprofits, they all tested the four day concept. Workers were given the same workload but only four days a week to do it. The result: Workers had less burnout, better mental and physical health, improved work life balance, more job satisfaction. Companies enjoyed higher productivity. They reduced meetings. They had lower turnover and absenteeism.

Working families are changing. Don't assume that your job in your 70s needs to be. Grandchild. Babysitter. Instead you can go to get a job. Employers are struggling to find qualified, experienced workers. You are qualified, you are experienced, and you don't have to do it on a full time basis. This is something that financial advisors are increasingly talking about with their clients who are wondering what's next after I leave my career. Have that conversation. Don't assume that babysitter is the job description for you. 

You know, I often hear from individual investors. They send me emails and whatnot, or they post to my social media pages and often they tell me that they make their own investment decisions, which kind of raises a question in my mind. If they're making their own investment decisions, why are they asking me for my opinion? But I digress. Do you really think you're as good at investing as financial professionals? What do you suppose financial advisors do? How do they figure out the strategies that they ought to be giving to their clients?

And if you are one of those financial advisors, let me ask you this question What resources do you use these days? Hundreds of thousands of advisors are independent, which means they don't have the back office of a Merrill Lynch or a Goldman Sachs to rely on. That doesn't mean, though, that advisors are stuck being all on their own, all by yourself. You've got access to some of the best industry research that there is.

And I want to give you just one example from one of our sponsors, Invesco. You know, Invesco, they're one of the oldest and largest asset management firms in the world. QQQ is one of the largest ETFs in the world all by itself. And every month Invesco publishes its Portfolio Playbook, a monthly market outlook that includes investment strategies to help financial advisors optimize their client portfolios. Portfolio Playbook offers an asset allocation plan tailored for literally today's market and economic environment, and it offers monthly adjustments for you to consider based on changing market conditions.

In the July market outlook, for example, Invesco points out that there are many improving economic sectors but cautions that we might not yet be entering a new cycle. And Invesco is recommending overweight of portfolio risk and an increase in allocation to stocks. The odds of a recession this year are rapidly falling, and that's setting the stage for a new bull market, Invesco says. I encourage you to read their report, which is providing their base case and what happens if conditions improve or worsen. 

Their site also gives you specific tactical asset allocation, which they adjust monthly for asset classes, regions, sectors and factors based on the prevailing macroeconomic environment. And now Invesco has created a web page that specifically talks about helping advisors, putting your clients cash to work. You know, investment yields are the highest they've been in two decades. We've had low yields for so long with banks paying zero point nothing for so many years that lots of investors are still being complacent. They're still sitting on cash and bank accounts and elsewhere. That's paying zero point nothing, even though they could be earning 4 or 5% on that money.

Invesco’s New Cash campaign shows you how you can help your clients get back on track. Locking in today's yields. This is a great client service. It'll boost your client relationships, it'll increase your AUM, and it will also help your client build wealth. I encourage you to take a look at both of these pages at Invesco website, the Portfolio Playbook page and the Cash Initiative page. The links for both of these are in the show notes, and if nothing else, it'll really show you where professional financial advisors are getting state of the art cutting edge research for today's investment world.

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