5 Ways LPL Research Supports Advisors and Investors

Why advisors and investors rely on LPL Research

LPL Research provides the expertise, rigorous analysis, and valued insights financial advisors can rely on to build investment strategies and communicate with clients. They operate as an extension of an advisor’s team, delivering independent investment advice, serving as a business partner, and helping advisors keep clients informed on the markets and economy. LPL Research also provides multiple publications, lists, and other items all designed to help advisors serve clients the way they choose. 

The 5 key areas of support

While LPL Research helps advisors every day in a multitude of ways, these are the five key areas of support they provide for both advisors and investors.

1. Market analysis 

So advisors don’t have to spend hours every day analyzing the markets on their own – taking valuable time away from their clients and business – LPL Research provides multi-asset, asset-specific, and economic commentary to help advisors quickly understand what’s going on with the markets. 

The team distills down the most important market events and their impact in a daily market update email, and advisors can join the team for a market analysis call every morning. For additional analysis, LPL Research publishes a monthly chartbook, which highlights the changing economy, as well as market movements in U.S. equities, fixed income, global markets, and alternative investments.

2. Client communication

LPL Research equips financial advisors to talk about the market movements and their impact on clients with a wide range of investor-approved content. Advisors can use this content to prepare for conversations and draft their own emails and letters, or elect to have it sent directly to investors. In fact, most of LPL Research’s resources are approved to share with clients. Some examples include: 

• Daily market update email
• Daily blog posts
• Monthly and event-driven client letters

3. Portfolio construction and asset allocation support

Whether advisors prefer to use individual investments or third-party managers, LPL Research has resources to help them construct portfolios designed for clients’ goals. Advisors can access reports that provide guidance on long-term asset allocation and insight into the team’s strategic market views, as well as short-term, timely assessments and forecasts that includes tactical asset allocation recommendations. 

Plus, advisors have access to focus lists for recommended equities, mutual funds, managers, and separately managed account strategies to help them choose the right portfolio makeup. LPL Research also provides advisors a wide variety of equity research tools, including the Argus tool, available to LPL advisors for no additional cost. 

4. Portfolio management

LPL Research manages 50-plus models across LPL’s advisory platforms. By selecting one or a combination of these models, advisors can rely on LPL Research to do the daily trading, streamlining investment management and giving advisors more time with clients. Advisors can also access performance reports and other materials to talk to clients about recent trades and portfolio models managed by LPL Research.

5. Additional support 

Whether advisors have a quick question about a single stock or want to dive deep into current market movements or portfolio strategy, the Research team is available to help. Easily accessible by both phone and email, the Ask Research team can provide advisors additional research information and support. 

LPL Research as a key partner

The LPL Research department can save financial advisors time, by centralizing both market movement resources and research materials, so advisors don’t have to search on their own. 

LPL Research can also add expertise to advisors’ investment processes, and provide a full team of experts as an extension of an advisor’s team. 

The team uses seven-plus tools in their own research, such as Bloomberg, Morningstar, and Envestnet, and works with partners like Ned Davis, Pantheon, and Credit Suisse. Rather than pay subscription costs to these services themselves, advisors can access the team’s research work that leverages the tools.