“I was introduced to the platform during a conference hosted by Potomac Fund Management where I got to see the power of YCharts first-hand,” says Ryan. “What sold me was the report functionalities and Comp Tables. Everything just looked super clean and client-friendly. Plus, everything could be exported to Excel for easy tracking. I immediately recognized the potential for significant time-savings.”

Soon afterward, Ryan signed up for a free trial to test drive YCharts’ research capabilities for himself and immediately recognized the impact the platform could have on growing his business. He and a colleague out of Buffalo within the Cetera Investors network added YCharts to their tech stack soon afterward.

“The twenty or so advisors under the Cetera Investors umbrella run a lot of the same models,” says Ryan. “YCharts’ sharing capabilities were a game-changer. We were able to build out and replicate the same models for a number of our clients - saving us from having to start from scratch.” 

With the help of YCharts’ customer support team, Ryan was also able to create a custom report template that highlighted performance and risk metrics he discusses most often, including annualized return, drawdown, standard deviation, and beta. From there, it took just a couple clicks to generate a report before each client or prospect meeting. “What used to take me 2-3 minutes to prepare previously is now down to around 15 seconds,” says Ryan. “ That might look like just an incremental amount of time back in my day-to-day, but it adds up.”

Since onboarding with YCharts, Ryan has realized significant time savings. Research that used to take up to 10 hours per month is down to 1-2 hours. He attributes Comp Tables with streamlining several of his processes and frequently leverages saved metric sets to quickly analyze any peer group or holdings list. Ryan also leans on the Excel Add-In to help track the firm’s various models.

YCharts Model Portfolios simplified the process of comparing a prospective client’s existing portfolio to a tailored investment strategy Ryan recommends. “YCharts made it easy for me to provide clients a direct comparison of their current asset allocation against our proposed solution,” says Ryan. “I can more directly speak to drawdown and return metrics for my clients and paint a clear narrative of what areas can be improved upon.” This has led to improved conversions of direct investment accounts to our advisory platform which has freed up more time to help clients with other aspects of financial planning. 

Ryan noted that for virtual meetings, the charting tools are a favorite amongst clients to spur engaging conversations. “Being able to visually narrate the positive impact of a strategy using either Fundamental Charts or Scatter Plot was a game changer,” says Ryan. “I’m now able to compare the performance of a client’s current holdings against a proposed model or index of interest in addition to performing stress tests or updating a chart’s date range all on-the-fly.” Being able to provide his clients with an easy-to-understand visual helped strengthen his recommendations while solidifying their confidence in him as their advisor. 

“Looking at all the other options out there, YCharts is best-in-class. Second place isn’t even close from a research standpoint and client-facing tool,” says Ryan.