In a new survey, advisor members of the Institute for Private Investors say they haven't been job-hopping, are getting more new clients and are making more portfolio changes, with liquidity as a top priority.

Surprisingly, advisor members of the Institute for Private Investors, surveyed in March, reported relatively low job turnover and a net gain in clients.

Only 25 per cent of advisors surveyed said they changing firms within the past two years, and eight in ten advisors said they gained clients since the fall of 2008.

Not surprisingly, 61 per cent of the advisors surveyed say they have changed the way they view and manage risk in their clients’ portfolios, and 54 per cent said that their firm has changed the way they view asset allocation and the construction of client portfolios.

Liquidity, concentration risk and “tail risk,” or the risk of an asset or portfolio of assets becoming an underperforming outlier by moving more than three standard deviation from its current price, were cited by the advisors as their top priorities.

“We are reviewing asset allocation formally every two weeks and making tactical changes,” said one advisor who took part in the survey.

Other wealth managers said the survey results appeared reflective of the industry, with some exceptions, most notably not including transparency as a top priority.

And concentration risk was probably not applicable “to a broad set of investors,” said Bob Pitti, a San Francisco-based wealth manager.

Having too much money in one asset class or company was more of a problem for IPI’s extremely wealthy membership, Pitti said, many of whom are families with more than $50 million in assets and large equity stakes in a family business.

Liquidity is a more universal concern, Pitti said.

“People are pulling back from limited partnerships, real estate and private equity,” he said. “Risk management is the mantra going forward.”

Barry Glassman, president of Glassman Wealth Services, in McLean, Virginia., said he has rebalanced all his clients’ portfolios.

“We’ve increased emerging markets and decreased total stocks,” Glassman said. “We’ve also embedded long/short hedging strategies in all our clients’ portfolios.”

Liquidity is also a top priority, he said, adding: “We don’t own a single limited liquidity investment."

When advisors IPI surveyed were asked if they believe private clients of other firms have been well served by the industry, 77 per cent said, “no”. 

Investors were more generous, however. In an IPI member survey last fall 61 per cent said they have been well served by their advisor.