Portfolios & risk
The annual review is the wrong trigger
Circumstances do not change on an anniversary. They change on specific days, and those are the days the profile is out of date.
Published
What the annual cycle misses
A profile captured in January and reviewed the following January is out of date from the moment anything happens in between.
Capacity in particular is a function of circumstances, and circumstances change on dates that have nothing to do with your review calendar.
Events that change capacity
A job change or loss. A large inheritance. A liquidity event. A divorce. A serious health diagnosis. A retirement date moving. A new dependent, in either direction.
Each alters the arithmetic immediately.
Events that change tolerance
Living through a significant decline for the first time. Sometimes a decline changes a client’s disposition permanently, and the profile captured before it no longer describes them.
The first real drawdown is the most informative measurement you will ever get. Most firms do not record it.
Events that reveal behavior
Any moment a client wanted to act and did or did not. Those are revealed behavior, and they are more predictive than any questionnaire.
Write them down when they happen. Nobody remembers accurately two years later.
The practical system
Keep the annual review, because it is a useful discipline and part of the file. Add explicit triggers so that named events prompt a re-profile regardless of the calendar.
And capture behavior in the moment rather than reconstructing it.
The compliance benefit
A file showing the profile was revisited when circumstances changed is a materially stronger suitability record than one showing an annual tick.
Tolerance, capacity, and behavior are three separate measurements that one risk score collapses into a single number. The Three Risks sets out the distinction in full.