Taking care of business with a spring cleaning

investmentnews.com:

As Bachman-Turner Overdrive once sang, advisors are “taking care of business.” With April well underway and tax season coming to a close, some advisors might be considering doing some spring cleaning around the office.

That can mean a lot of things, from reviewing and shifting portfolio allocations to revamping recruitment and marketing strategies, or simply just catching up on their work.

Some advisors might still be focusing on the old adage, “Sell in May and go away.” But Andrew Evans, CEO of Rossby Financial, said his focus is looking at the books of business, and whether clients have any accounts that need to be closed out or if they have too many accounts.

“From a general paperwork standpoint, [we’re asking], are our files in the places where they need to be? Are they easily accessible and do we have the proper naming convention so that we can find things properly?” he said. “Going through that process is really how we view spring cleaning.”

Joanne Burke, owner of Birch Street Financial Advisors, says she does a midyear portfolio review in investment review meetings with clients.

“We made some tweaks in anticipation of what was coming ahead,” she said. “We reduced our emerging markets holding and opened up and expanded the large-cap growth, because the earnings per share looked good and the valuations supported by the falling rates. But we think small-cap stocks are still improving as the recession risk fades.”

Burke noted that her team is always trying to figure out the best opportunity for yield. “If rates do come down, what are the options for us to maintain as high a cash yield as possible?”

Evans says what really dictates changes for him is not the timing in the markets but rather notable client events. One