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And so many of our clients, they either borrow against their securities portfolio, or are borrowing in other ways, in anticipation of moves going forward. Now that is, that's advice that we deliver on a very individual basis. Because it revolves entirely around client sophistication, their ability to withstand further draw downs, in the market and the like.
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Julie Hyman:
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Now I do want to mention, just briefly, a new kind of service that you guys have about matching advisors. And I want to ask that because traditionally in the advisor and management business, there's sort of a hereditary nature to it, almost.
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The person who managed your parents' money, particularly if you have some money, is the person who ends up managing your money. But as you said, there's a range here. And there are people who want an advisor who've never had one before. How do you get those people hooked up with somebody?
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Andy Sieg:
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Great question. When you think about the volatility and the moves we're talking about, this is a bull market for advice. So we see more people seeking financial advice than we've seen perhaps ever. And one of the things that's extraordinary is it seems like access to financial advisors would be widespread, but almost a third of high net worth clients don't have a financial advisor today.
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And when you dig into that, what they tell you is, we find the process of finding a financial advisor to be a little opaque. If you're from family that perhaps hasn't historically had wealth in your family, you don't have an easy recommendation to a financial advisor. Others find it very intimidating.
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And so a few weeks ago we launched something called Merrill Advisor Match, which is designed to make it very transparent, and very easy to access a financial advisor. If a prospective client goes to the advisor match service, they enter some information about themselves. We've made it very fun and interesting. These are not just straightforward financial questions. A lot of it's your personality. If something breaks in your home, how do you handle that? Do you call an expert, fix it yourself, or look the other way and hope it fixes itself over the next few weeks?
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And based on what you enter, we match you up with a financial advisor that has similar personalities, similar perspective. We're only a few weeks into this. The reaction has been outstanding. In many ways, it's almost creating something like a dating app in the middle of the market for financial advisors. And we think it's solving an age old problem.
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And lastly, Merrill Lynch is the firm that took Wall Street to Main Street. There's a lot of people on Main Street, particularly new investors from diverse backgrounds that haven't had access to financial advice. This is democratizing
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