• 1. Who is Index Fund Advisors (IFA)?
• 2. Why Should I Choose Index Funds for My Investment Strategy?
• 3. How Does IFA Measure the Performance of Their Index Portfolios?
• 4. What Fees Should I Expect When Investing With IFA?
• 5. Why Do Some Financial Advisors Avoid Using Index Funds, and How Does IFA Address This?
• 6. Can IFA Help With More Than Just Investments?
• 7. How Can I Start Investing With IFA?
• 8. Are There Any Resources Provided by IFA for Learning More About Index Funds?
• 9. Does IFA offer alternative fund options?
• 10. Has Mark Hebner Semi-Retired?
• 11. Is there a concern that some advisors at IFA do not have CFPs?
• 12. What are the risks of using a startup investment advisor?
• 13. Is IFA just a roboadvisor?
• 14. Did IFA disclose that it may offer discounts to clients that departed advisors used to service?
• 15. Do Investor Advisor Representatives own IFA's clients?
• 16. Has IFA suffered as the result of the transfer of clients to a competitor?
• 17. Has IFA changed due to the appointment of Wes Long as the President of the company?
• 18. What capabilities does IFA have?
• 19. Did Two Investment Adviser Representatives (IARs) violate clauses in their employment agreement?

1. Who is Index Fund Advisors (IFA)?

Answer: Index Fund Advisors (IFA) is a wealth management firm that specializes in using index funds to build diversified investment portfolios. They aim to provide cost-effective, long-term investment solutions to their clients. 

2. Why Should I Choose Index Funds for My Investment Strategy?

Answer: Index funds offer several advantages: they are generally low-cost, provide broad diversification, have lower turnover which can lead to tax efficiency, and they aim to match the market's performance rather than trying to beat it, which aligns with a passive investment strategy that IFA supports. 

3. How Does IFA Measure the Performance of Their Index Portfolios? 

Answer:IFA uses hypothetical back-tested performance data, please see Disclosures for the Hypothetical Back-tested Performance of Model IFA Index Portfolios and Indexes, https://www.ifa.com/disclosures.

4. What Fees Should I Expect When Investing With IFA? 

Answer:When investing with IFA, you should expect advisory fees which are disclosed upfront. Performance data for IFA's index portfolios is shown net of these fees.

5. Why Do Some Financial Advisors Avoid Using Index Funds, and How Does IFA Address This? 

Answer: Some financial advisors might avoid index funds because they believe in active management or because they charge higher fees for their services, which might not align with the low-cost nature of index funds. IFA addresses this by focusing on the evidence that index funds typically outperform actively managed funds over the long term, offering clients a cost-effective solution that enhances the value of advisory services through diversification and risk management rather than trying to beat the market. 

6. Can IFA Help With More Than Just Investments? 

Answer: Yes, IFA provides comprehensive services beyond just investments. This includes financial planning, tax management, and wealth advisory services, ensuring that your investment strategy fits within your broader financial goals and tax situation. 

7. How Can I Start Investing With IFA? 

Answer: To start investing with IFA, you can visit their website at www.ifa.com for more information or to subscribe to their newsletter for updates. You would typically need to contact them directly to discuss your investment goals, risk tolerance, and to set up an initial consultation where they would tailor an index fund strategy to your needs. 

8. Are There Any Resources Provided by IFA for Learning More About Index Funds? 

Answer: IFA offers several educational resources including 'Index Funds: The Movie', books like 'Index Funds' available on Kindle, an audiobook, as well as interviews and presentations with financial experts. These resources are available through their website to help investors understand the benefits and mechanics of index funds.

9. Does IFA offer alternative fund options?

Yes, we have from almost the beginning of IFA. There are many different funds that have been used by IFA to implement Index Portfolio data. The current count of implementations listed on our website are 19. Here is a screen shot. Number 20 on this menu is a list of 155 approved ETFs and mutual funds that our advisors can choose from. Virtually all Avantis, Dimensional, ETFs/Mutual Funds, and passive funds from Vanguard, Blackrock, Schwab, and Fidelity have been acceptable to our investment committee for many years. Here is a current list of our approved funds: https://www.ifa.com/pdfs/approved-funds-list.pdf

Here is our current Fund Options selection form. Our advisors will be happy to explain the differences of the various options:

Before you select an options, please be aware of this data. Your IFA advisor can explain these charts to you:

10. Has Mark Hebner Semi-Retired?

Answer: No—and far from it! Mark is extremely involved in the day-to-day oversight and steering direction of IFA, in addition to directly managing more than 400 clients and $1.7 Billion of the $5.4B of the firm's total assets under management as of 12/31/2024. Continuing on with his "mission to change the way the world invests", in 2024 alone, Mark completed and published the 10^th edition of his book: Index Funds and released the third edition of the Index Funds documentary; released the 5^th edition of the Galton Board: Probability Demonstrator; revised the IFA.com website; celebrated a milestone accomplishment of IFA's 25^th Anniversary; launched a movement and petition to the world's media to report total return indexes, instead of indexes based on price changes (https://www.ifa.com/petition). 2024 was an especially productive and exciting year for IFA, and Mark Hebner remains in full action, as chronicled here: https://www.ifa.com/articles/index-fund-advisors-2024-highlights-and-milestones .

See Mark's story about the founding of IFA.

Mark Hebner is the founder and CEO of Index Fund Advisors, Inc., (IFA), author of the highly regarded bookIndex Funds: The 12-Step Recovery Program for Active Investors, focused on investor education. Mark's current book and previous editions received praise from financial industry experts and academic luminaries, including John Bogle, David Booth, Burton Malkiel, and Nobel Laureates Harry Markowitz and Paul Samuelson. The book has been nominated as one of the three all-time greatest investment books, along with the writings of John Bogle and Warren Buffett.

This book details the possible perils associated with stock picking, mutual fund manager picking, market timing, and other wealth depleting behaviors. Hebner's 12-Step Program teaches the differences between active and passive investing, explains the emotional triggers that impact investment decisions, and offers an enlightening education on evidence-based investing that may forever change the way an investor perceives the stock market.

Hebner is a respected speaker, frequent news contributor and authority on investing. His life's mission is to "change the way the world invests by replacing speculation with education." Hebner is especially knowledgeable about index funds, portfolio construction and the research indexes designed by Nobel Laureate Eugene Fama and Kenneth French. These indexes provide the building blocks for the prudent evidence-based investment strategies that Hebner implements for his IFA clients.

Mark is a Wealth Advisor (Series 65) and has an MBA from the University of California, Irvine and a Bachelor's in Nuclear Pharmacy from the University of New Mexico. He was a member of the Young Presidents' Organization for over 20 years and is currently a member of the World Presidents' Organization and the Chief Executives Organization.

Prior to founding Index Fund Advisors in 1999, Mark was President, CEO and co-Founder of Syncor International (previously a public company - SCOR) from 1975 to 1985. In Jan. 2003, Cardinal Health acquired Syncor for approximately $850 million. As a division of Cardinal Health, it is the world's leading provider of nuclear pharmacy services.

11. Is there a concern that some advisors at IFA do not have CFPs?

Answer: No. CFP stands for Certified Financial Planner and IFA has a two-person Financial Planning team that works with any of IFA's clients to create financial plans. Our planners are David York, CPA and CFP, see https://www.ifa.com/taxes/about/david-york and Kirk Ito, CFP, see https://www.ifa.com/about/kirk-ito

12. We asked the artificial intelligence agent ChatGPTs for the risks of using a start investment advisor. Here is what we got:

Working with a startup investment advisor can be risky for several reasons. While some new firms or advisors may be highly skilled, here are some key reasons to be cautious:

13. Is IFA just a roboadvisor?

No, roboadvisors use their own white labeled custodians (broker dealers) to custody their assets. IFA uses Schwab and Fidelity. Roboadvisors do not offer financial planning through sophisticated software like Right Capital and eMoney, like IFA uses. Roboadvisors do not have 11 personal advisors to guide clients in their investing and financial planning, like IFA. Roboadvisors do not offer tax services and have CPAs on staff like IFA.

14. Did IFA disclose that it may offer discounts to clients that departed advisors used to service?

YES, this text is directly from our ADV, which is provided to every new client and updated and distributed each year: "In addition, IFA has the discretion to and has lowered its advisory fees, thereby providing a discount, if and when an investment adviser representative leaves IFA. This may serve as an incentive for the for the client to remain with IFA, as such discounts could result in a substantial savings in advisory fees." Please review our fee page and Form ADV Part 2, page 9 at https://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov/

15. Do Investment Adviser Representatives own IFA's clients?

Answer: NO. An investment adviser representative ("IAR") is defined in SEC Rule 203A-3 as a supervised person of the investment adviser (in this case, IFA). An IAR solicits, meet with, or otherwise communicate with clients of the investment adviser. See SEC Rule 203A-3 for the complete definition.

IFA provides IARs with a constant and significantly large flow of prospects and clients transferred from other IARs and a large support system of marketing, advertising, a vast supply of trade secrets including intellectual property created by Mark Hebner and his team, including books, films, website with videos, articles, charts and most importantly a proprietary Risk Capacity Survey that generated prospects for IARs.

IAR's contributions are far less than the total efforts to create, service, provide financial planning, invoice, provide compliance, accounting, human resource, IT support, portfolio managers, custom written software, a myriad of supporting software, executive management, web designers, developers, and all the other support of the current 55 employees. Mark Hebner estimates their contribution, as measured by their compensation relative to other expenses to be a relatively small percentage of the total expenses and effort to acquire and maintain IFA clients. IARs are not a party to any client or IFA agreements and have no legal or otherwise right to refer to IFA clients as their clients.

16. Has IFA suffered as the result of the transfer of clients to its competitors

Answer: There has been a loss of clients, however, IFA is a solid company with a strong balance sheet and operating income.

17. Has IFA changed due to the appointment of Wes Long as the President of the company?

Answer: YES, and for the better. Wes has been an excellent President for IFA. He is an industry veteran with over 34 years of experience. He joined IFA in 2015 as an Executive Vice President, Director of Wealth Advisor Services. During his tenure with the firm, he has increasingly added areas of responsibility. In his current role as President, he works closely with all areas of the organization providing strategic direction to help ensure best in class client service, operational efficiency, regulatory compliance and implementation of growth initiatives designed to expand wealth services and new client business. As a member of IFA's Investment Committee, he utilizes his more than three decades of financial markets knowledge to offer insight and direction on IFA's investment philosophy and portfolio implementations.

Prior to joining Index Fund Advisors, Wes spent almost 18 years in various management roles for one of the largest broker dealers headquartered on the west coast. As an Executive Vice President for this organization, he had direct responsibility for multiple areas of the firm including the marketing department, taxable fixed-income desk, syndicate desk, credit department, retirement services department and the Private Client Services Group consisting of 200+ Investment Advisors. He was a member of the firm's President's Executive Committee, Executive Management Committee and Financial Review Committee.

Wes holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business/Marketing from Portland State University and is a Wealth Advisor (Series 65). He has a certificate from The Wharton School for completing the Securities Industry Association Branch Management Leadership Institute. In addition, he previously held FINRA Series 7, 8, 24 and 55 licenses.

18. What capabilities does IFA have?

Answer: Please watch this video and review IFA's STRENGTH IN NUMBERS below to fully understand the breadth of IFA's team and services:
https://www.ifa.com/videos/can-your-advisor-say-this-regis

19. Did Two Investment Adviser Representatives (IARs) violate clauses in their employment agreement?

Answer: YES. Please see an explanation below.

On February 1, 2022, IAR #1 signed an agreement to retire from Index Fund Advisors in two years, with the condition that IFA train a family member on multiple aspects of IFA's business. Here is paragraph 2.2 of that agreement: Employee desires to transition clients serviced by [employee] to [family member] over the next two years, with Employee voluntarily resigning from [their] employment with IFA at the end of such two-year period.

On January 8, 2025, both IARs resigned from IFA. We now realize that they had already secretly established a competitor to IFA beginning as early as July 18, 2024, while they were employed by IFA. They each signed employment agreements with paragraphs that were very specific to their duties and loyalties to IFA.

First, they agreed that during their employment they would not engage in any business that is or may be a competitor of IFA. Second, they agreed to devote their full-time effort, attention, knowledge, and skill to only the business and interests of IFA. I have provided paragraphs 7.4 and 3.2 of their employment agreements below and I invite you to read them.

Since their departure, we have been reviewing their prior activities and have discovered the following activities and dates, which are provided at the bottom of this email. Please keep in mind that these documented activities happened while they were still employed by IFA and getting paid handsomely.

1. According to GoDaddy WHOIS, their current website domain was purchased on July 18, 2024, about six months before they left.

2. We found an email dated Dec 11, 2024, from a software company to them. It discussed an October 2024 conversation where they identified a "go live date" for their new company of Jan 9, 2025 (which was the date they went "live").

3. According to a State of California website, a new LLC was formed on October 15, 2024. The fact that they were secretly creating a competitive company behind our backs, accepting the highest year-end bonuses, and attending company strategy meetings was disappointing, to say the least, but more important to you this demonstrates who they really are and what they are willing to do.

The choice of who manages your money is of course up to you. However, I would never trust either IAR again, especially with my money.

Here are paragraphs from their Employment Agreements:

7.4 Non-Competition during Employment. During the term of this Agreement, Employee shall not, either directly or indirectly, as an employee, employer, consultant, agent, principal, partner, stockholder, officer, director or in any other individual or representative capacity, engage or participate in any business that is or may be a competitor of IFA. For purposes of this Agreement, the term "competitor" refers to any person, corporation, limited liability company, partnership or other business entity engaged in or about to become engaged in the performance of services or the licensing, sale or marketing of any product or service (a) which is similar to or directly competitive with any IFA product or service with which Employee has been directly involved during her employment by IFA; or (b) with respect to which Employee has acquired Confidential and Proprietary Information.

IAR #1: 3.2 Time and Effort. Employee shall devote her full-time productive effort, attention, knowledge and skill to the business and interests of IFA. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the parties contemplate that Employee will be transitioning accounts to [family member] over the next two years, or through January 31, 2024, with a corresponding reduction in [their] duties and responsibilities with IFA. IFA shall be entitled to all the benefits and profits arising from or incident to any and all services performed by Employee pursuant to this Agreement.

IAR #2: 3.2 Time and Effort. Employee shall devote [their] full-time productive effort, attention, knowledge and skill to the business and interests of IFA. IFA shall be entitled to all the benefits and profits arising from or incident to any and all services performed by Employee pursuant to this Agreement.

Screen shots of what we discovered:

This is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement of any particular security, product or service. There is no guarantee investment strategies will be successful. Investing involves risks, including possible loss of principal. Performance presented by IFA may contain both live and back-tested data. This data is provided for illustrative purposes only, it does not represent actual performance of any client portfolio or account and it should not be interpreted as an indication of such performance. IFA Index Portfolios are recommended based on time horizon and risk tolerance. For more information about Index Fund Advisors, Inc, please review our brochure at https://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov/ or visit www.ifa.com. This is intended to be informational in nature and should not be construed as tax advice. IFA Taxes is a division of Index Fund Advisors.