Tearsheet Podcast: Exploring Financial Services Together

Steve Wallman's Folio Investing was a pioneer in the online brokerage industry. Founded 12 years ago, Folio has built a very strong following for its innovative service and ease-of-use. Folio also does a ton of work with professional investment advisors and their clients. Steve joins us on Tradestreaming Radio (http://www.tradestreaming.com ) to discuss how his stint as commissioner at the SEC provided the impetus behind founding Folio and where he believes investing is headed in the future. ***Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

Decisions like buying a home trip up even the smartest minds. There are so many variables, so many moving parts - it's real hard to wrap your mind around it. Today's guest on Tradestreaming Radio (http://www.tradestreaming.com ), Michael Carvin, founded a company to assist with just that problem. His recently-launched firm, SmartAsset (http://www.smartasset.com ), provides a next-generation toolset to clearly answer tough problems like buying a home and the decision to buy versus rent. Michael joins us to discuss his move from private equity into entrepreneurship, why people have such a hard time making tough financial decisions, and how SmartAsset solves these problems. ***Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

Many investors know intuitively that making investment research more social SHOULD lead to better outcomes. The truth is, we're just beginning to figure out how social media can impact investment performance...and a new firm, www.SprinkleBit.com is going to help forward this conversation in a major way. SprinkleBit is rolling out a full-suite of research and trading tools, all centered around the social aspect of investment research. Founder and CEO Alexander Wallin joins us to talk about social investing, how to empower investors to make better decisions, and his product roadmap to roll-out social enabled trading. ***Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

There's no lack of good investing ideas. We all come across good, compelling investment themes in our work lives, at home, at the store. Where we struggle as investors is finding the appropriate investing vehicle to capture our ideas. That's where Motif Investing comes in. Join me and co-founder/CEO of Motif Investing, Hardeep Walia for a discussion of the new investment platform, idea-driven investing, and the future of finance. ***Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

I have to admit: investing in peer to peer loans didn't initially appeal to me. I thought it would be hard to assess the risk in lending to individuals -- after all, that's what banks get paid the big bucks for, right? But 5 years after Lending Club launched its website, the firm has pioneered a whole industry, not just to say a new asset class. There have been over $1B in loans underwritten and investors like me are now using p2p loans as a core holding in the fixed income part of their portfolios. Founder Renaud Laplanche joins me on Tradestreaming Radio to talk about how the p2p loan industry cures some major inefficiencies in the market for capital, does a better job sizing up and personalizing risk, and how his firm and industry might just eat the banking system's future lunch. ***Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

The holy grail for investment advisor marketing is getting your existing clients to refer you to their friends. Where traditional marketing may close 5% of the time, warm referrals result in new business close to 90% of the time. Blogging has helped put advisors on the map, on the Internet, but it hasn't resulted in a ton of new business for most advisors. Vestorly aims to change that. Co-founder and CEO, Justin Wisz joins us on Tradestreaming Radio to discuss why traditional content marketing isn't working for advisors and why Vestorly is a better solution for garnering warm referrals. ***Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

A lot of investors claim they're focused on the big picture. Others give lip service to their focus on "the long term". James Juliano, partner and portfolio manager at Kairos Capital Advisors, walks the walk. He and founder of the firm, Russell Redenbaugh, use economic and government policy as a guide for their investment decisions. James joins us on Tradestreaming Radio to talk about how he deciphers the policy tea leaves and how those big ideas get implemented tactically int their portfolio. ***Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

There aren't a lot of really innovative search technologies for investors. That's changing -- researchers and entrepreneur are looking at unique ways to classify financial product data on mutual funds and ETFs. That means it gets easier for us to identify new investments that make sense for our portfolios. Uri Kartoun, co-founder of Stockato, has some great academic experience in robotics and classification of large data sets and he's turned his attention to investing. Uri joins us to talk about how his set of cloud tools can help this generation of investors find the investments they're looking for...and maybe what they didn't know they were looking for. ***Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

Yodlee's been aggregating financial information and data for 11 years now, powering some of our favorite financial apps. Now, the firm is getting aggressive about powering the next generation of fintech apps and platforms. Chief Strategy Officer, Joe Polverari joins me on Tradestreaming Radio to discuss Yodlee's new incybator/accelerator program and the resources the firm is committing to financial services startups. ***Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

To build and protect wealth, Investors don't need another get-rich-quick scheme. Instead, look at history's best investors to understand the basics of investing, the players in the market and their different priorities, what works and what doesn't, and how to manage volatility. Steven Sears, editor and columnist at Barron's, has written just such a book. His writing has a lifetime of experience and advice witnessing what works for the best investors...and what doesn't. He joins us on Tradestreaming Radio to discuss his new book, The Indomitable Investor. ***Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

Professor James Berman has taken a new investing research platform (Trefis) and made it even more valuable. His new investment advisory newsletter, the Berman Value Folio, integrates interactive modeling tools to create what I think is one of the first mashups of next generation investment research. James is our guest this week on Tradestreaming Radio to talk about the investment research process, the next generation of research tools (including Trefis), and how he's created his investment product. ***Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

Tadas Viskanta has been at the forefront of the next generation of financial content for years. His AbnormalReturns.com blog is the place tens of thousands of investors start every trading day. Tadas is out with a new book that really is a culmination of 9 years of work, scouring the Internet for the best and most interesting trading strategies and technologies. Tadas joins us for to talk about his work on this week's episode of Tradestreaming Radio. ****Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

The online brokerage space may look similar from the outside. But when you start looking under the covers, there are a lot of differences in pricing, service, and tools that they offer. StockBrokers.com publishes an annual survey of the best and worst of the online brokers. I invited the firm's founder, Blain Reinkensmeyer to discuss this year's results on Tradestreaming Radio. I hope you find it enlightening...I did. ****Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

The future for a lot of investors is through online advice -- automated applications that scan our portfolios and make recommendations to lower fees and optimize our holdings. Launching today, FutureAdvisor will do just that, for free. Focused on long term, cost-conscious investors, the web app monitors holdings, bubbles up ways to save on fees, and advises on which securities to hold/which to sell. Cofounder Bo Lu joins us to discuss the launch of his company and his firm. Previously at Microsoft, Lu encountered an opportunity to help millions of investors with sound, jargonless investment advice using low cost, index funds. Backed by a top VC and leading angel investors, FutureAdvisor is the culmination of that vision.

Smart investors are looking at various data sets to help give them an edge with their investing. Professor Darren Roulstone has studied how investors are using Google to search out financial information and what search volume may say about future stock prices. Join us on Tradestreaming Radio as I talk with Roulstone about his research and how investors can use his findings. ****Thanks for joining us on Tradestreaming Radio -- I'm very grateful for your time. It's awesome learning about these new tools and technologies together. If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****