Leslie Turk

Barron's: Ahrens, Capell, Frayard top advisers

by Leslie Turk

It's difficult to stay confident in these times of economic uncertainty, but it sure helps to know a handful of the nation's top financial advisers are right here in our back yard. Lafayette's Bill Capell, Rick Frayard and G. Andrew Ahrens have earned a spot on Barron's list of the country's 1,000 top financial advisers. Capell and Frayard are with UBS Financial Services, and Ahrens' company is Ahrens Investment Partners. They are among only five financial advisers in Louisiana to make the list. The Top 1,000 Advisers is this week's Barron's cover story:

It's make or break time for the country's best and brightest financial advisers. Fresh from a year in which every asset class posted large losses, and diversification aggravated those declines instead of mitigating them, financial advisers at big Wall Street houses, banks and other firms are trying to repair the damage to investor psychology -- and to their own confidence in markets. "It's been an Armageddon; there was absolutely nowhere to hide from all the nightmare stuff flying around," says Lorna Meyer, senior vice president of investments for Merrill Lynch in California. "It's the financial-market version of 'shock and awe.' Now we have to figure out what to do in the aftermath."