New Year’s Resolutions Financial Advisors Wish Clients Would Make

Every financial advisor knows the feeling of having their good advice ignored. Clients splurge when they shouldn’t, play it safe in retirement when they can afford to spend more, and just won’t update those darned beneficiary designations. But what if advisors could create New Year’s resolutions for their clients? Granted resolutions and follow-through are two different matters, but for this week’s Barron’s Advisor Big Q, we invited five advisors to create resolutions for their clients. Here’s how they responded.

Craig Robson, founding principal, managing director, Regent Peak Wealth Advisors

Create or pursue your own stretch goals. Those could be financial, personal, or relational. We always bucket aspirational goals in our clients’ plans, and I will periodically remind them and ask, “What is preventing you from pursuing those goals?” Another way to say it is, “If not now, when?” Examples could be building your dream home, starting a business, going for that C-suite job opportunity.

The second resolution is to take chances. Make yourself available for some new opportunities. For me, the pandemic was a huge reminder of this. We started our firm eight months before the pandemic started. In the summer of 2020, I decided to negotiate a five-year contract for brand-new office space. When everybody was leaving and parking lots were empty, we were going back in. We negotiated fantastic financial terms and got great new fresh office space in Atlanta. Obviously, think it through and be educated, but there’s nothing wrong with taking some chances.

Emily Millsap, manager, financial planning, Avantax Wealth Management

Take thetime to learn your generational wealth story. So many of our beliefs about money and financial behaviours are tied to what we’ve learned and observed from our family and our culture and our community. And we always try to make money about math and logic, but there’s a lot of emotion tied into why we make the financial decisions we do. Understanding how our current behaviours and beliefs are connected to the stories of those who came before us, and then passing those stories to the next generation, is such a powerful and healing thing.

There are a few books out there that I really like on this topic. Loaded: Money, Psychology, and How to Get Ahead without Leaving Your Values Behind touches on some of that. Anything by Dr. Brad Klontz; Mind over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health is a great one. Those are good places to start, and then talking to your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, about what they remember, what they learned, how they felt about money.

If you really want to do a deep dive, you can build a genogram, which is like a family tree, but you outline levels of education and career and how ancestors behaved with money and what they thought about money. Another resolution is that anyone who carries anxiety about their financial future will seek out experts who can help calm their fears and make a plan.

Dane Burkholder, private wealth advisor, Ameriprise Financial

New Year’s resolution No. 1 is to update your financial plan. People spend so much time focusing on markets and investments and rates of return. But the beginning of the year is a really great time to step back and say, “What are my financial goals, and am I on track for those financial goals?” No. 2 is doing a 401(k) audit. That could be as simple as rebalancing the assets inside of the 401(k) or setting the account to automatically rebalance throughout the year. If you were fortunate enough to get a raise, increase your contributions.

Resolution No. 3 is looking at your emergency fund. We have a unique opportunity to get a positive return on cash, with money-market accounts and CDs at 5%. People who are sitting on large cash balances have a tremendous opportunity to keep money liquid and available, but earning some interest. No. 4 is managing emotions: There are going to be points where the market pulls back or potentially corrects, but sometimes the best strategy is to take no action. When you use emotion to create action, generally the result isn’t beneficial. If you have a house that’s worth $800,000 and you go on Zillow the next day and it’s worth $700,000, you’re not going to sell your house.

Andrew Crowell, vice chairman, wealth management, D.A. Davidson & Co

The markets moved upward dramatically last year, and it’s very likely that clients’ target allocations are different than their current allocations. Somebody who owned a little Nvidia at the beginning of the year now has 220% more in terms of market weighting. So it’s important to rebalance annually, because you may inadvertently be carrying more risk than you need to or want to.

And if Santa makes a list and checks it twice, we have to do the same with all of our beneficiaries on every retirement account, with our trust documents, and so forth. Things change, relationships change. People die, people divorce, people marry, and the list that may have been valid 12 months ago may not be valid today. So make an annual checkup appointment and look at all the beneficiaries listed on your company 401(k), the IRA rollover from your first job out of college and whatever else.

It’s always helpful to set a budget and prioritise what you are going to be saving for this year and create spending guardrails. Banks and brokerage firms will soon allow you to download spending summaries from the prior year; pie charts breaking out spending by category. It can be eye opening to see, “Wow, I know we ate out a lot, but that restaurant line is a lot bigger than I thought.”

Nicholas Yeomans, president, Yeomans Consulting Group

Start with getting organised. Folks say they have that desire, but when it comes to actually getting organised and lining up all their affairs, to put together their tax documents, their estate-planning documents, their portfolios, their 401(k)s and IRAs, everything’s everywhere. I work with a lot of people who are retired, and as you get older, things unfortunately happen, from incapacity to death. Often, there is one spouse left holding the bag, and now they’re hunting and pecking and trying to find out where everything was. They’re already in a state of emotional distress, and now you’ve compounded that distress. Organising is a gift to the spouse who might end up having to take care of you or make those final decisions after you’re gone.

My second resolution is to communicate with family. Younger generations are more proactive in communicating with their kids, but unfortunately, a lot of folks in that 60- to 85-year-old group tend to do a much poorer job. We’re talking about the organisation of your finances and who is in charge of what. Who’s your trustee, who’s your power of attorney, what are your wishes with your healthcare directive? Is everything in a lockbox in your office? And what were you thinking when you put your will together? Why did Sandy get more than Charlie? [Explanatory] letters are a great idea. However, it’s even more meaningful to bring everyone together every two or three years and give them an update as to what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

Reporting season has once again reminded investors that a strong profit does not guarantee a rising share price, and a large loss does not always trigger a sell-off. What matters most is how each result compares with expectations and, increasingly, what management says about the year ahead. During the August 2026 season, companies offering credible turnarounds or unexpectedly strong guidance were rewarded handsomely, while those flagging weaker margins, slowing demand or greater uncertainty were punished.

The following ranking draws on Morningstar’s review of 164 ASX-listed companies and measures each company’s share-price movement on the day it reported. This captures the market’s immediate response to the earnings announcement, before subsequent economic developments, dividends and company-specific news cloud the picture. Here are the five biggest winners, and the five hardest-hit losers, of the season so far.

The five winners

1. Bapcor (ASX:BAP): +41.0%

Bapcor delivered reporting season’s largest relief rally after presenting early evidence that its troubled automotive-parts business was stabilising. Although underlying revenue fell 1.8% to $1.92 billion and underlying NPAT collapsed 85% to $10.8 million, underlying EBITDA of $152.5 million exceeded guidance.

More importantly, working-capital initiatives released $68.5 million in the second half, lifting cash conversion to 109.4% and reducing net debt by 63% to $135 million. The statutory loss was $431.6 million, largely because of non-cash impairments. Investors focused on improving operational momentum, stronger liquidity and management’s expectation of modest FY27 revenue growth.

2. Zip Co (ASX:ZIP): +18.2%

Zip comfortably surpassed its FY26 targets, sending the buy-now-pay-later provider’s shares sharply higher. Transaction volume rose 23% to $16.7 billion, while cash earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation jumped 58% to a record $268.9 million. Statutory profit climbed 46% to $116.4 million, and the cash operating margin expanded by 4.2 percentage points to 20%.

The strongest signal was guidance for FY27 cash earnings of $340 million—around 26% growth and above analysts’ forecasts. US transaction volume increased 42.5% and now represents three-quarters of group volume, offsetting weaker customer activity in Australia.

3. CSL (ASX:CSL): +17.3%

CSL’s result was hardly spectacular in isolation, but it cleared a market bar that had fallen dramatically following earlier downgrades and restructuring announcements. Underlying NPATA was US$3.1 billion, down 2% in constant-currency terms, while operating cash flow reached US$3.51 billion.

CSL maintained its full-year dividend at US$2.92 per share and completed a A$1 billion buyback. The real catalyst was FY27 guidance for approximately 5% underlying profit growth, compared with market expectations closer to 2%. After an extended period of earnings disappointments, investors interpreted the outlook as evidence that CSL’s core plasma business was approaching a sustainable recovery.

4. Judo Capital (ASX:JDO): +16.9%

Judo Capital demonstrated strong operating leverage as its specialist business-lending franchise expanded. Full-year profit before tax rose 34% to $168.1 million, while pre-provision profit increased 42%. Gross loans and advances grew 18% to $14.7 billion, reaching the top of the bank’s guidance range and comfortably exceeding broader system growth.

Deposits increased 24% to $12.2 billion, return on equity improved by 1.1 percentage points to 6.4%, and earnings per share rose 29% to 9.9 cents. Reaffirmation of the FY27 outlook gave investors confidence that loan growth could continue without sacrificing margins or credit quality.

5. Super Retail Group (ASX:SUL): +15.8%

The owner of Supercheap Auto, rebel, BCF and Macpac reported record sales of $4.2 billion, up 3.2%, despite cautious discretionary spending. Profitability went backwards: normalised profit before tax fell 7% to $306 million and normalised NPAT declined 2.8% to $226 million as transformation spending weighed on margins. Nevertheless, the result exceeded subdued expectations, online sales grew 5.3% and membership across the group’s loyalty programs reached 13.1 million. Investors were also encouraged by positive early FY27 trading, stable gross margins and continued market-share gains. A fully franked 33-cent final dividend added to the appeal.

The five losers

1. Hansen Technologies (ASX:HSN): –21.2%

Hansen’s historic result met expectations, but investors recoiled from its outlook. The utility and communications software provider achieved an underlying EBITDA margin of 31%, exceeding its 30% target, while generating strong cash flow. However, management designated FY27 an “investment and transition year”, signalling a roughly five-percentage-point margin contraction as spending on products, sales capabilities and organisational changes increased.

Revenue had already been broadly flat, leaving investors concerned that the investment program would depress earnings before new growth appeared. Leadership changes, including the chief executive’s departure, added uncertainty. Management expects revenue growth and margins above 30% to return in FY28, but the market was unwilling to wait.

2. Life360 (ASX:360): –19.4%

Life360’s headline growth was impressive: quarterly revenue rose 38% to US$159 million, subscription revenue increased 31%, and adjusted EBITDA climbed 53% to US$31.1 million. Monthly active users reached 102.4 million and paying circles grew 27% to 3.2 million. The sell-off reflected expectations rather than a collapsing business.

Net income fell 18%, the net margin contracted from 6% to 3%, hardware shipments dropped 18%, and full-year EBITDA guidance was merely maintained. After a strong valuation run, investors wanted a larger upgrade and clearer evidence that heavy investment in advertising, international expansion and artificial intelligence would generate additional earnings.

3. PEXA Group (ASX:PXA): –17.0%

PEXA reported a 7% increase in continuing-operations revenue and 12% EBITDA growth to $152 million, accompanied by a two-percentage-point margin expansion. Free cash flow increased 39%, suggesting the core Australian electronic-conveyancing platform remained highly profitable. Investors instead concentrated on management’s warning that property-transfer volumes could decline, alongside regulatory uncertainty surrounding the fees PEXA can charge.

The company is also continuing to invest heavily in its loss-making international expansion. Morningstar considered the market reaction excessive, arguing that structural transfer-volume assumptions had not materially changed, but the combination of softer near-term activity and regulatory risk overwhelmed the respectable headline numbers.

4. SEEK (ASX:SEK): –14.3%

SEEK produced solid FY26 figures, including 10% revenue growth to $1.20 billion, a 15% rise in EBITDA and 28% growth in adjusted earnings per share. It also lifted its fully franked annual dividend by 13% to a record 52 cents. Those achievements were overshadowed by falling paid job-ad volumes and cautious FY27 assumptions.

The statutory accounts included a $201 million loss from the SEEK Growth Fund and $377 million of significant items, making the headline result considerably less attractive. Investors were particularly concerned that economic weakness could limit volumes while the company continued investing in platform integration and artificial-intelligence products.

5. JB Hi-Fi (ASX:JBH): –12.3%

JB Hi-Fi’s full-year result was broadly respectable, with group sales rising 5% to $11.1 billion and underlying earnings per share increasing 6% to $4.48. The damage came from its current-trading update. Australian sales were almost flat during the June quarter and deteriorated further in July, while earnings in the core Australian electronics business fell 3.6%.

Housing-related categories were particularly weak as higher living costs and interest rates constrained household budgets. With JB Hi-Fi entering the season on a demanding valuation, an in-line historic result was not sufficient: the loss of sales momentum prompted investors to rapidly reduce their expectations for FY27.

Overall, the season showed that share prices react less to whether profits rose or fell than to the gap between results and expectations. Bapcor was rewarded for being less troubled than feared, while several fundamentally profitable companies were punished because their outlooks failed to justify elevated valuations.