SIT Investment Associates
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Is this your firm? Have your data reviewed | August 4th, 2020
SIT Investment Associates, registered in 1981, is a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) in 3 state(s) with a licensed staff of 34 advisors. SIT Investment Associates manages $3.6 billion and provides investment advisory services for 44 clients (1:2 advisor/client ratio).
Disciplinary Questions
After checking the disciplinary records of SIT Investment Associates, our system found no disciplinary questions to ask. Checks take place monthly.
Conflict Questions
After checking the regulatory records of SIT Investment Associates, our system has identified the following question(s) to ask. Learn more.
Is your firm also a Broker-Dealer or are they affiliated with one? What conflicts arise from this relationship? How do you mitigate them?
Why ask? Currently this firm is also a Broker-Dealer or is affiliated with one. When firms are dual-registered as broker-dealers, they may be subject to compensation-related conflicts of interest, including revenue sharing from mutual funds, cross-selling of commissioned insurance products, and the sale of proprietary investment products. All of these conflicts can negatively impact clients via hidden fees and overall higher costs.
Do you offer mutual funds that have 12b-1 fees?
Why ask? 12b-1 fees increase the total annual cost of owning a mutual fund with no guarantee of higher returns. Some firms receive these fees as payments, which creates an incentive to promote them.
Regulatory disclosures state that your firm sells proprietary investments and products. Please provide me a list of the products and a summary of how much you earn from them.
Why ask? This firm recommends proprietary investments and products that could generate larger commissions than other similar non-proprietary products. This could also limit the number and diversity of investment options available to you and may impact their transferability. Do not be afraid to ask how much they will earn from the product or what other non-proprietary options are available.
Do you offer products that have performance-based fees, or do you accept performance-based fees? Will any of my assets be invested in those products?
Why ask? When performance-based fees are charged, the financial advisor is paid for outperforming a benchmark, typically an index. While this may seem like an attractive compensation structure to ensure your advisor is making your money work for you, often, the managers of those products are incentivized to take inappropriate risks to beat their performance benchmark. For instance, research has shown that mutual funds that use incentive fees take on more risk that funds that do not, and tend to double down and increase their risk following a poor performance. This could be detrimental to a client during down markets.
Do you perform side-by-side management? How do you mitigate conflicts that arise from managing accounts with differing fee structures?
Why ask? This typically occurs when firms manage mutual funds or hedge funds alongside smaller retail accounts. Side-by-side management can create an incentive for the advisor to favor the larger funds, potentially leading to unequal trading costs and unfavorable trade executions for their retail clients.
Do you accept soft-dollar benefits? How did these benefits affect your firm’s selection of a broker-dealer partner?
Why ask? This firm receives soft-dollar benefits that could incentivize them to push trades through broker-dealers that provide advantages to the firm instead of through broker-dealers that could provide the best trade execution for their clients.
Which securities do you trade for yourself that you will also be recommending to me?
Why ask? This firm has marked in their disclosures that they trade recommended securities. While this often can be seen as "eating your own cooking," there are several inherent conflicts that can arise. For example, front running is when a financial professional buys or sell securities ahead of their client. In short, any financial professional should disclose all positions they hold (or have sold short) that they will also be recommending to you.
Our system found no other conflict questions to ask. Checks take place monthly.
Firm Information
As a financial advisory firm, also known as a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), SIT Investment Associates can provide a variety of financial planning services for Americans. The goal of a financial advisor is to review your personal finances and work with you to achieve your life goals, e.g., saving for retirement, by creating a comprehensive financial plan. Financial advisors focus primarily on money management, including investments like stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds.
Financial planning services can include tax planning, estate planning, retirement planning, or life-based event planning such as saving for college, getting married, purchasing a home, paying down debt, or planning an inheritance.
| Summary | Firm |
| Minimum Investment | Ask firm |
| Average Client Balance | $81,237,090 |
| Total AUM | $3.6 billion |
| Investment-Related Prohibition - Court | No |
| Advisor / Client Ratio | 1:2 |
| Website | Visit Site |
| Phone Number | 612-332-3223 |
| Headquarters | Minneapolis, MN |
| SEC Filings | View SEC IAPD CRD #105725 |
Disciplinary History
An important aspect of the Trust Algorithm is processing the SEC Form ADV Part 1 filing of each Registered Investment Advisor (RIA). “Item 11 Disclosure Information” contains a list of valuable disclosures that are relevant for Americans.
As identified in SEC Form ADV Part 1, Item 11 “Disclosure Information”, the Trust Algorithm identified the following disciplinary disclosures for SIT Investment Associates:
Cost
Unfortunately, there is no single, uniform pricing standard for working with a financial advisor. Catchphrases, including "fee-only," can be helpful; however, Americans often get confused with competitors promoting "fee-based" in response.
Ultimately, to understand the underlying costs of advisory services, we always recommend asking for an itemized fees breakdown and reading the firm's ADV Part 2 Brochure (Item 5, "Fees and Compensation").
| Disclosure | Firm |
| 12B-1 Fees | Ask firm |
| Attorney Conflict | No |
| Broker-Dealer Conflict | Yes |
| Performance-Based Fees | Ask firm |
| Commissions Conflict | No |
| Insurance Agent Conflict - Affiliation | No |
| Insurance Agent Conflict - Firm | No |
| Non-Secure Website | No |
| Private Investment Management | No |
| Proprietary Products | Yes |
| Side-by-Side Management | Ask firm |
| Soft-dollar Arrangements | Yes |
| Trades Recommended Securities | Yes |
FAQs
Where is SIT Investment Associates headquartered? Which states do its financial advisors serve?
SIT Investment Associates is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN. SIT Investment Associates offers financial advisor services in 3 states: Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas.
What is the average client balance at SIT Investment Associates?
While SIT Investment Associates advises clients across a variety of portfolio sizes, the average client balance is currently $81,237,090. In total, SIT Investment Associates manages $3,574,431,983 in assets.
What is the historical performance of SIT Investment Associates?
Fun Fact: No regulator currently tracks portfolio performance metrics for the financial planning industry. Remember, the financial plan your financial advisor creates with you will always be unique to your personal financial situation. That's the value of working with a financial advisor.
Can I write a review of SIT Investment Associates or file a complaint?
investor.com relies on regulatory data from the SEC to rate and review financial advisor firms. As a result, we do not support personal reviews on the site. To file a complaint or dispute with this firm, please fill out the SEC Investor Complaint Form.
This automated report was generated using SEC and FINRA data and was last updated on August 4th, 2020*. For data support, email "support@investor.com". Firms that receive a 4.5 or 5-star rating are considered Trusted by investor.com. Learn more.
*SEC data last verified 08/04/2020. For the most up-to-date information, please view the applicable SEC and FINRA reports above. By visiting these sites, you are subject to their terms of use (IAPD, BrokerCheck). Any data inaccuracies, please contact our team. All requests for updated information should also be reported directly to the SEC and/or FINRA. Firm’s/Financial Professional’s investor.com profile pages may contain certain limited information directly provided to investor.com by the Firm/Financial Professional including, by way of example only, the “Personal Bio,” “Certifications,” and/or “Investment Philosophy” portions of the profile page. With respect to such information, investor.com cannot and does not independently verify, audit, validate, assess or guarantee the adequacy, accuracy, or completeness of such information; such information is not included or otherwise incorporated within investor.com’s Trust Score algorithm or review process.
