Accountability—setting ethical standards for the investment management industry

A client must rely on the integrity of the professional money manager through the stages of the investment process: research, recommendation of specific securities, selection of investments appropriate to the investor, trading of the securities, and reporting of how successful the decisions have been. Throughout this process, the investment manager may be confronted with conflicts of interest. The Association for Investment Management and Research (AIMR) is a nonprofit association of money managers that has developed a code of ethics and standards of professional conduct. Its code contains governing principles; its standards provide the minimum rules of conduct. The AIMR Standards work on the assumption that investors will be adequately protected if the appropriate processes are in place and they provide full disclosure. Since the late 1980s, AIMR has been leading an industry effort to include in the Standards guidelines for presenting a money manager's historical performance.

Keywords:

• Accountability
• quality
• ethics
• code of ethics
• investment management
• financial analyst
• fiduciary
• disclosure