Understanding Your Clients' Willingness and Ability to Take Risk

When developing a solid investment portfolio for an individual client, a financial advisor must take into consideration key factors that help craft the most suitable investment strategy. Ultimately, the primary concern is the achievement of the client’s financial goals, and key considerations are the client's willingness and ability to take risks in order to obtain those goals. There are numerous fundamental aspects intimately woven into these concerns, which every financial advisor must examine before building a sound portfolio.

Risk tolerance is often confused with risk capacity, but the reality is that while the two are similar and related, the two concepts are quite distinct from each other. Perhaps the simplest way to understand the two is to consider them as opposing sides of the same coin.

When a financial advisor deals with a client’s risk tolerance, the advisor is determining the client’s mental and emotional ability to handle risk. Essentially, this aspect of risk management is understanding and respecting the level of investment or financial risk that a client is comfortable taking, or the degree of uncertainty that the client can withstand without losing sleep. Typically, the level of risk that a client deems acceptable will vary with his or her age, financial stability and security, and the investment goals that the client wants or needs to achieve. Advisors sometimes utilize questionnaires or surveys to get a better grasp on how risky an investment approach should be.

The reverse side of the coin is risk capacity, which is more of a financial numbers game. The financial advisor must review a client’s portfolio, taking into account financial metrics that indicate the level to which the client’s bottom line can withstand risk in the event of potential losses, and compare this with how potentially beneficial the risk is in terms of possible capital gains. Risk capacity is constrained by several aspects and involves a client’s potential need for liquidity, or quick access to cash, along with how quickly the client needs to meet his or her financial goals.

Liquidity risk is often a major source of concern for clients. The ability to quickly sell off assets and liquidate them into cash is not always a necessity, but most investors still find it comforting to know that they have the ability to cover sudden or unanticipated costs, such as a medical emergency. The risk lies in the types of investments the client holds. For example, a financial advisor may advise private equity investments for clients who are less concerned with fast access to cash, with the tradeoff being the potential for significantly higher returns. On the other hand, clients concerned about liquidity would benefit from investments in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and stocks, which are investments that can readily be liquidated for their fair market value.

A financial advisor must also determine how to construct a client’s investment account properly, based on any tax concerns that the client may have. This is largely based on the client’s time horizon and investment goals.

For example, consider that a client is building up an investment account to save for retirement and wants to defer tax payments on the client's investments until the time that the client retires. Most clients prefer to defer taxes until retirement because they will generally fall into a significantly lower tax bracket then, due to far less income being earned than was the case during their active working life. For a client in this situation, the best course of action that the financial advisor can take is to set up investments through a vehicle, such as a Roth IRA account, which generally allows withdrawals that are tax- and penalty-free after the client reaches age 59 1/2. However, for clients who anticipate making frequent withdrawals of investment capital prior to retirement, there is no benefit from making investments through a tax-deferred type of investment account.