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asset allocation is obviously a big component, this depends on your investment philosophy/how you want to structure the business. Some advisers create their own portfolios of individual securities while others invest solely in mutual funds, usually a combination of active and passive funds. There is also a behavioral aspect to PWM (preventing your client from doing something stupid) that adds to the value proposition of an adviser.
Also, you may be aware of this but I wouldn't underestimate the sales aspect of PWM, you can't have an investment philosophy if you have no assets to manage, and building a book is not easy, especially if you are going after high net worth individuals. Starting out 90% of your time will be spent prospecting.
Than you largecaplarceny, I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I am aware of the crucial sales aspect, and actually had a question on the opposite end of the spectrum. How much time does an advisor spend on the actual investing? I know this is a vague question and most likely depends from client to client, but just seems like there isnt much time in the day as a wealth manager to truly do fundamental analysis on companies like hedge fund analysts do. And without the analysis, not sure how comfortable I would be in picking individual securities for my clients. I would be more comfortable taking a more index investing approach and allocating asset classes rather than securities. Is this how it usually works?
Read thebrofessors blog posts about PWM. It'll cover your questions.
Overall though, PWM is very difficult because you need to gather assets and quite simply, that's just tough.
As an adviser it's definitely less fundamental Security Analysis and more mutual fund due diligence, as you mentioned there's usually not enough time to do a lot fundamental research on individual securities like a HF/MF would do, that's why it's outsourced to a third party manager. The trend has been towards indexing, but active managers with a more flexible mandate are used as well and provide an additional layer of diversification/ potential downside protection. So yes the focus is more on asset allocation/manager due diligence than individual security selection.
All sales all the time. If you can't handle that, you should not even consider this. In fact, you shouldn't start your own firm until you have a huge base of clients who will follow you from the firm you currently work for. Most jobs in finance at upper levels have a huge sales component, but PWM has more than most.
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