If a Four-Day Week is Good Enough for a Trust Company . . .

 The five-day work week is a modern construct. Back in 1871, when The New York Stock Exchange started continuous trading, the floor was open Monday through Saturday. Six years later the Saturday trading session was cut to mornings only, but Saturday morning trading persisted until 1952. 

If the six-day work week could evolve to five days, why not four? A New Zealand trust company has tried the idea – work four days, get paid for five – and the experiment went so well that the change has become permanent.

Now the consequences of Covid 19 have proponents of the four-day week hoping for a large-scale breakthrough. 

Could it happen? Plenty of employers seem to embrace the idea, at least until they learn they're not supposed to pay 20 percent less for 20 percent less work time. Four days work, five days pay!

Investors, Beware of Financial Weaklings

Back in the Mad Men era, ads offering the trust and investment services of banks stressed "financial strength" and "financial responsibility." The banks wanted to remind readers that while their competitors went bust in the 1930s, they didn't. And they wanted to reassure potential clients: "We'll do our best not to goof up, but if we do, or if our trust officer loots your trust and runs off to Tahiti, we have the financial resources to make good."

Financial strength remains a desirable attribute in an investment adviser. Unfortunately, The Wall Street Journal warns, it's one that many of today's small advisory firms lack.

Many individual investors are using advisers instead of brokers these days, drawn by regulatory and structural changes that favor the advisory-business model of charging steady fees instead of trading commissions. The number of people working as investment advisers has grown 33% since 2008, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

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 Smaller investment advisers often are thinly capitalized and, in many cases, don’t carry enough insurance to cover a significant legal judgment against them.

Banks and trust companies aren't the sexiest source of investment services, but their capital should enhance their clients' peace of mind.