Most advisors send market updates to clients.
The problem isn’t that clients shouldn’t know market information.
It’s that most market updates are someone else’s message.
Every week, advisors receive market commentaries from investment managers, economists, broker-dealers, and research firms. They’re well-written, professionally designed, and incredibly easy to forward.
They’re also a missed opportunity.
Every client communication shapes the way clients think about investing. When you simply forward someone else’s research, you’re allowing someone else to determine what deserves attention, what narrative gets reinforced, and ultimately how your clients interpret what’s happening in the markets.
I believe advisors should own that responsibility. You can use the market and economic commentary you receive to draft your own update – sharing just what you believe is important and controlling the narrative.
I recently emailed a market update to my own investment clients.
The purpose wasn’t to summarize the markets. Clients can get market summaries anywhere. Instead, I wanted to shape the narrative surrounding what they were already seeing in the news.
The message wasn’t,
“Here’s what happened and this is what we think will happen going forward.”
It was, “Here’s how to think about what happened.”
That’s a very different objective.
Stop Reporting. Start Coaching
For example, one of the themes I emphasized was that markets continue to surprise even experienced professionals. If someone had accurately predicted the year’s major headlines in advance, they probably would have expected significantly lower stock prices. Yet markets moved higher. That creates a powerful teaching opportunity: knowing tomorrow’s headlines does not necessarily lead to better investment decisions.
I also addressed the growing discussion around whether we’re in a market bubble—not by attempting to answer the question, but by reinforcing a timeless investment principle. Rather than encouraging clients to make decisions based on predictions, I used the conversation to explain why diversification remains valuable even when one area of the market appears expensive.
Notice what’s happening.
I’m not trying to predict. I’m teaching.
That’s the purpose of nearly every client communication I send.
When you’re writing your own market commentary, think less about reporting news and more about reinforcing the investment behaviors you want clients to exhibit during the next difficult market.
Some questions I often ask myself are:
- What conclusion are clients likely to reach after watching the news this week?
- What investment principle would help them interpret today’s headlines more constructively?
- Is there a chart or historical example that reinforces discipline rather than prediction?
- Can I redirect attention away from short-term events and back toward the long-term investment process?
The data itself isn’t the message. The message is the lesson the data allows you to teach.
That also means you don’t need pages of statistics. One or two carefully chosen examples often have far more impact than ten charts and an economic forecast. The goal isn’t to prove how much you know. It’s to increase your clients’ confidence in their investment strategy.
Clients rarely remember GDP forecasts six months later.
They do remember a perspective that changed the way they think about investing.
That’s the kind of communication worth sending.
JAY
Free Preview: Behavioral Advisor Academy
If you enjoyed this article, I think you’ll enjoy the free preview of the Behavioral Advisor Academy.
The first seven lessons are available at no cost and focus on helping advisors communicate in ways that increase client confidence, reduce emotional decision-making, and keep clients committed to their long-term investment strategy.