This report tracks how U.S. households are using advice and technology for saving and investing advice and information. Some highlights include:

• Preference for self direction in investment decisions is at the lowest level since tracking began, with preference for “general contracting” -- at a peak.
• Consumers cut back on sources of information and advice, favoring themselves and advisors over other sources, including online and employers.
• In 2024, for the first time, mobile surpassed computers as the device of choice for online information and advice activities.
• Nationally, 8 in 10 households (79%) have taken a saving/investing action in the past year, with the most popular being saving more and purchasing insurance.

This report is our annual review of what customers want from the stores they do business with, how satisfied they are with these stores, and evolving trends in pricing. Wants and Pricing is one of our most highly anticipated reports of the year, and includes the 2023 "Top Performer" firms — those that set the bar across key competitive metrics.
A few highlights from this year include:

• Long-term nationally, the top-growing wants are “has good mobile apps,” internet access, specialized expertise, timely/tactical investment ideas, and “is innovative.”
• Proactivity in investment ideas, investment selection and personal financial advice are attributes that are highly important to HHs but earn lower levels of satisfaction.
• Ameriprise, Edward Jones, LPL, Morgan Stanley, WFA, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Merrill, T. Rowe Price, USAA and Vanguard are among the firms that have earned "Top Performer" designations in one or more customer wants.
• As fee sensitivity rises nationally, use of flat fees is increasing and many stores grapple with significant portions of customers who do not know how they pay for their relationships.

This report features special year-end data and analysis to help you set and refine corporate strategy for 2025.  It includes "need to know" competitive performance metrics with store & asset manager rankings featured in our corporate scorecards. 

Select Report Takeaways:

• U.S. households (HHs) are spreading their wallets across fewer stores. Consolidation was strongest in upper-asset HHs.
• Vertically integrated leaders Fidelity and JPMorgan Chase serve more households HHs with their investment products and services than other firms. 
• As HHs consolidate relationships, Bank of America Merrill narrowly holds on to #1 for HH penetration, but is losing ground to #2 Fidelity and #3 JPMorgan Chase.
• Trust and intent to invest more are leading indicators of future flows. Fidelity, Edward Jones, LPL and Vanguard earn high marks from customers on multiple loyalty metrics. 

This year’s Investment Products & Asset Managers report looks at the continued growth of brokerage accounts in U.S. households, and how margin lending and option trading serve as revenue sources now that stock and ETF trades are free. We also examine household asset allocation in light of how managed products are playing a bigger role for many investors. Additionally, we explore which investment managers are leading the industry given the challenges and opportunities they face.

This Explore Qualitative™ report looks at how consumers combine different financial advice resources in managing their money. Most often a combination of sources and types are used. As observed in Hearts & Wallets’ 2024 focus groups, only about 1 in 5 “fully advised” participants rely on a single advisor. Hear from customers why it is important to categorize advice experiences, and set expectation on what different advice experiences deliver and how they are priced. 

This report explores which financial tasks consumers find difficult, what they are most likely to seek advice on, and where the biggest advice gaps are. For example, 17% of households today find estate planning difficult but do not seek help. Advice gaps such as this represent an opportunity to provide help on a topic for consumers who find it difficult.

Key Findings include:

• Tasks are most difficult for the young. However, difficulty eases with age and assets. Nationally, the #1 most difficult task is “choosing appropriate investments."
  
• Tasks are not difficult in isolation. Most (68%) households who find one task very difficult also find 3+ tasks very difficult. Clustering of difficulties increases with assets.
  
• Seeking help is up, frequently for multiple tasks. The most avid advice-seekers use combinations of financial professionals and online resources that vary by generation.
  
• The biggest advice gaps in dollars are estate planning, “handling market volatility emotionally,” Roth conversion, buy/sell specific securities, balance goals and RMDs.
  
• Being prepared to help on multiple tasks yields a loyalty premium.

This report is our annual review of what customers want from the stores they do business with, how satisfied they are with these stores, and evolving trends in pricing. Wants and Pricing is one of our most highly anticipated reports of the year, and includes the 2023 "Top Performer" firms — those that set the bar across key competitive metrics.
Here are a few highlights:

• Clear and understandable fees is the top want for the mass-market, while being unbiased and putting clients' interests first is the top want for the $3M+ households
• Personal financial advice has become more important over time while satisfaction has remained flat, indicating a possible area for competitive differentiation
• Ameriprise, Edward Jones, Merrill, Morgan Stanley and USAA achieved one or more Hearts & Wallets Top Performer designations in 2023
• Pricing remains a problematic area with many customers not knowing how they pay for saving and investing, especially in workplace models. Flat fees are reportedly becoming more common.

Exclusively available to Trends™ subscribers. The symbiotic dynamics between stores and the products the stores sell has always been a topic of discussion -  who holds the power, and does the store or the product ultimately drive consumer purchase decisions. This qualitative report looks at this topic closely through customer verbatims in order to build a better understanding of what influences consumer purchase behavior. Select key findings include:

• Consumers buy products from stores
• Consumers see stores as more important and differentiation should happen at the store level
• The investment product is "going to get me the money I need"

Exclusively available to Trends™ subscribers. Given there is a high level of consumers confusion about pricing, we developed this qualitative report to look closely at their understanding and perception of pricing. Through the use of focus groups, we look at what services are considered worth paying for, and what are the preferred ways of paying for them. Here are some of the most significant learnings: 

• Today’s consumer talks about pricing more rationally than in the past, acknowledging that a company “needs to make money.” 
• Paying directly reduces “worry” about incentives. 
• Paying a flat fee or “commissions” is the preferred way to pay over a percentage of account value, and a flat fee is the preferred way to pay for financial planning.  

Our research shows that 20% of customers think their savings and investing solutions are free, so this report also explores consumer response to the word "free." Focus group consensus is that guidance and motivational support should be free, but personal financial planning should not be. Also, investment management services should not be free. 

Read this important report to learn more about how clients think of and respond to pricing - many dont know what they pay or how they pay.

This report is our annual look at how households are currently allocating their assets and which investment managers are leading the industry. Here are a few highlights:

• Within the 95M households who know their products, 59M report they do not own mutual funds. Half of 59M households that don't own mutual funds get equity exposure from other products.
• Individual stocks are still the most commonly owned, but adoption of separately managed accounts (SMAs) is growing significantly.
• 19.4M households report using cryptocurrency. Crypto use has more than doubled from 9.4M households in 2020

Exclusively available to Trends™ subscribers. This report is derived from our 2023 qualitative research that looks at what "simplify my finances" means to consumers and why this is #1 driver for moving money. Simplifying finances means different things to different people and few patterns emerge within traditional segmentations. It is influences by a number of things such as online experiences, hassle free user interfaces, easy access to live representatives and a single point of contact.  Simplicity, however, does not necessarily correlate with consolidation and using fewer firms - many consumers would like to do business at “one place,” but aggregation raises concerns.

Exclusively available to Trends™ subscribers. This report is the first module of the 2023 Explore Qualitative Research and looks at Direct Indexing, considered by some to be the managed account product of the future. Read this report to learn more about how consumers understand and feel about direct indexing.

Direct indexing involves buying the individual stocks that make up an index, in the same weights as the index. This is another form of index investing and contrasts to index mutual funds or index exchange-traded funds (index ETFs) that track the index.

Exclusively available to Trends™ subscribers. Consumers' approach to financial decision-making is evolving rapidly. They are consulting more sources of information than before, and technology continues to play an increasingly important role in how households interact with financial services firms. However, self-direction is at an all-time low, and paid investment professionals are still the go-to source for close to 50% of U.S. households. A possible implication is the need for firms to develop more advice and guidance solutions that combine in-person and technology support.

COVID-19 has resulted in increased financial actions by consumers. Savings is on the top of the list for many with one in 5 households creating an emergency fund for the first time. This report looks at who is taking action, what they are doing, and the goals for the various segments of savers. Here are a few of the take-aways: Households whose work was affected by the COVID-19 crisis were more likely to have taken actions than households with no work disruption. Gen-X, Millennials and the New Generation have been much more active with financial responses to COVID-19 than the Silents and Boomers. We have classified savers into five segments beyond the traditional age-based categories that combine behavior, attitudes and household finances. Among the findings, "Big Savers" are the most valuable customers today, but "Aspiring Savers - High Potential" are looking to make changes in their financial lives and could be valuable over the long haul. Investment firms have the greatest reach with the Big Savers and banks have it with the Aspiring Savers - High Potential.

Exclusively available to Trends™ subscribers. This Explore Qualitative™ Report examines how investors want to access and pay for various pieces of financial advice and service. It is an Explore Concept Test, meaning it reveals consumer reactions to a product or service that could be commercialized soon or is newly in-market. The series of which this report is part, Shopping for Advice on Aging Gracefully, explores the increase in older consumers moving money, changing needs of an aging population, and industry-level questions about pricing of advice and high levels of cash. The demographic for this series is investors ages 53-70 with >$500K investable assets (>$250K outside workplace) who are actively involved in money movement, segmented by Desired Scope and Service Ranges on Inside Advice® Grid. As with all Explore Qualitative™ Reports, the underlying data in this report are consumer comments.