Weekly Strategy PERFORMANCE

As the end of the year approaches, make sure you and your clients are adequately planning for any IRA contributions, required minimum distributions (RMDs), or gifts. Remember, the IRS requires tax-deferred account holders over the age of 70½ to take an RMD on an annual basis. Under the CARES Act, clients can suspend their scheduled 2020 RMD distribution. A full report of your clients’ RMDs can be created on the E*Trade Advisor Services Liberty website under documents/standard reports. Please review your client accounts and notify our Client Services team if any scheduled distributions need to be suspended under the CARES Act.

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Charles  Schwab recently completed its acquisition of TD Ameritrade. We have been assured that this change in ownership will not affect our management of client  accounts at this time, as Schwab Advisor Services and TD Ameritrade Institutional  will remain separate custodians until the account conversion is complete, which is expected to take between 18 and 36 months. For more information, please read  Schwab’s announcement about the acquisition, available here. If you have any  questions, please contact our Client Services team at 800-347-3539, extension 1.

Morgan Stanley acquires E*Trade Advisor Services 

Morgan Stanley’s acquisition of E*Trade Advisor Services has been in the works for several months. We recently received an announcement about the completion of the transaction along with the company’s FAQ, available here.

In a recent town hall, E*Trade’s leadership addressed the following frequently asked questions regarding the acquisition:

• Will E*Trade Advisor Services be keeping its name? Yes.
• Will the custodial platform change? No. In fact, E*Trade Advisor Services plans to make enhancements to the Liberty platform. It will also maintain autonomy at its facilities in Centennial, Colorado.
• Will accounts need to be repapered? Existing accounts will not need to be repapered. However, next year, clients will receive a new terms and conditions communication. E*Trade Advisor Services will provide plenty of notice ahead of that distribution.
• Will our client service representative change? No.
• Will there be a new pricing structure? No.
• Will Morgan Stanley market to our clients? No. Although their recently mailed privacy notice was sent to all E*Trade account holders, we have been assured that Morgan Stanley will not market to our advisory clients and that multiple steps have been taken to prevent marketing efforts to our clients. In fact, this protection was included in a new service agreement we executed with E*Trade earlier this year.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please contact our Client Services team at 800-347-3539, extension 1.

Account address changes

To protect the safety of client account data, E*Trade will no longer accept client address, email, and phone number changes by email. E*Trade will require either a signed Letter of Instruction or the completion of the Change of Address form, available here.

Trusted contact person

E*Trade has added the Trust Contact Person feature to client accounts. The account owner can designate a trusted contact person as the authorized party for E*Trade Advisor Services to contact and disclose information to if there is a concern about their account. The trusted contact person cannot view account information, execute transactions, or inquire about account activity. The trusted contact person may be asked to confirm the client’s current contact information if they are unreachable, confirm the account owner’s current health status, or be notified of any possible financial fraud. The form to add a trusted contact person is available here.

Liberty access for new accounts

E*Trade Advisor Services will no longer use the client account number as the username for access to Liberty. New clients will receive a temporary username in their welcome letter. Once a client is logged in to Liberty, they can change their username and update their password.