As of Friday, putting a client's needs first becomes law.

Despite a bitterly contested battle by brokers, banks and insurance companies to kill it, the on-again, off-again Department of Labor fiduciary rule becomes effective June 9, 2017. Investors should cheer the news.

That's right — it is no longer just a slogan that slick marketers use to woo unsuspecting retail investors into their fee-based, commission-based, fee-sharing web of duplicity and immoral behavior. Since I am already a fiduciary, I tried over the years to advise readers on what is in their best interests since their advisers certainly were not. The new law changes all that.

If your adviser, broker, wealth manager, banker, et al provides you retirement advice for a fee, they are required to act in the best interest of their client. This rule covers all tax-deferred investment accounts. Ordinary taxable investment accounts are excluded from the rule.

"But hasn't my broker been acting in my best interest all along?" you might ask.

The simple answer is no. Previously, the law states that as long as he or she puts you in a suitable investment they were within the letter of the law. Suitable does not mean the lowest cost or best performing fund, stock or any other financial security. It just means they can't put a 92-year-old grannie into a two-cent biotech stock that she knows nothing about.

A number of brokers, annuity shops and others have already abandoned ship sending out letters to their customers that they will no longer be managing their IRAs, 401(k)s and other tax-deferred accounts. Some enterprising brokers are trying to get around the law by having their unsuspecting client sign a paper that releases them from acting in their best interests. Why, you might ask would anyone be naive enough to sign something like that?

Many elderly clients, for example, have established long and trusting relationships with their advisers, despite the suitability — only rule. I understand that. There are brokers out there that genuinely do care for their customer's well-being. It is not the individual that you need to worry about; it is the managers that he reports to and the organization he works for those are the real problems.

What do they do when their boss says "get him to sign this form?" Do they quit or do what the boss says?

Balancing the demands of their firm, versus protecting their customer is a dilemma that many in the financial services sector face every day. The new Department of Labor rule makes it easier for some to do what is in their customer's best interests. Yet, others will use the trust they have built up with their clients to have them sign a waiver form.  Don't do it!

Studies suggest that over a life time of savings, the typical investor has paid out one third of their saved, retirement assets in fees. From the government's point of view, they are condoning the payment of roughly $4 billion per year in fees by savers on the total $3 trillion in assets that represent the tax-deferred savings pool.

In a world where defined benefit plans and pensions for life have disappeared, it is now the American public's responsibility to save for retirement through government sponsored tax-deferred savings accounts. But most of that public has no financial background or education, and yet they are left on their own to make investment decisions.

Until now, financial advisors, who were not fiduciaries, simply compounded this problem by giving advice and charging fees that were not necessarily in the public's interests.  Good advice can make the difference between a satisfying retirements or bagging groceries for income at the local supermarket. Anything that helps savers achieve the former (rather than the latter) has my vote.

Additional gains propelled stocks higher this week with all three averages closing at record highs once again. Despite the fact that more and more experts are warning of a possible fall in the averages, investors continue to pile into stocks. Should you?

The short answer is no, wait for that decline, unless you have no exposure to the stock market. That would be hard for me to believe if you have been reading my column regularly. My readers also know that the threat of a pullback hangs over the market all the time since we can expect as many as 2-3 declines in the stock market every year.

The economy, however, is still growing enough, and interest rates are still low enough, to justify the present level of stock prices.  Friday's nonfarm payroll data was just another example of the underlying support that is propelling stocks skyward.

The country's official unemployment rate has dropped to 4.3 percent. That is a historically low number and most economists would say we are at full employment now. That's not quite accurate, however, if you look at the "underemployment rate."

That is the number of workers who are presently working part time, but would prefer full-time work. If you add that category of workers with those who have a full-time job, you have an overall unemployment rate of 8.4 percent. That is quite a bit higher than the official rate but is still down from 8.6 percent in April and the lowest reading of the combined employment data since June 2007.

Anecdotal evidence from several CEOs around the country over the past few weeks seems to indicate that Corporate America is having an increasingly tough time filling job positions. And we are not just talking about skilled labor like engineers and IT specialists. Even service sector jobs like fast-food are crying for help.

Corporate America has had its own way when it pertained to hiring for the last decade or so. They could get all the labor they wanted, at the price they wanted. Workers, if they wanted to work, had to take whatever salary was offered, as well as a cut in benefits. Well, times are changing, and it is only a matter of time before business managers wake up to that fact.

I have been watching wage gains in the payroll reports for over two years now. The good news is wage growth has more than doubled from an anemic 1 percent 18 months ago to 2.5 percent today. Granted, the gains are up and down, depending on the time of the year, but the trend is your friend if you are a U.S. worker. And that just adds more support to the markets, since consumer spending is the lynchpin of what makes this country grow. Higher wages means higher spending, everything else being equal.

Enough about economics! The bottom line is that, regardless of what Trump, the Republicans, or the rest of the world is doing, right now the U.S. economy is in pretty good shape. As such, the markets have a cushion under them. That should keep any selloffs contained. So, sure, expect a 5-6 percent pullback any day, week, or month now, but don't let that get you down. It is the nature of investing. In the meantime, enjoy your gains.

As the stock market makes new highs, investors tend to get greedy. They also begin to believe that what has happened in the recent past will continue to happen in the future. Actually, history shows the exact opposite. It is time to give the potential downside some thought.

Hope burns brightly in the equity markets right now. Many on Wall Street believe that the Republican-dominated Congress, led by Donald Trump, "The working man's president," will usher in a golden era of strong economic growth and robust financial markets. The problem is that politics and investments make for strange bedfellows.

At some point, I expect that the two will part ways and when they do, look out below.

Now, with that in mind, have you given any thought to what you are going to do when the inevitable correction does occur? When your $1 million tax-deferred portfolio loses $120,000 in less than a month, will you panic and sell or will you hang in there or buy more?

This is the time to plan your strategy — not when the markets are down eight days in a row and pundits are predicting the end of the world. Many indicators I watch are predicting that somewhere up ahead, investors should expect a substantial pullback. Stock market volatility, a sure contrary indicator of market strength, has been declining for the past 15 months. The Volatility Index is at historical lows right now.

Then there is the law of physics. What goes up must come down. We are in our eighth year of a bull market. Memories of the 2008-2009 financial crises have faded. It took many investors at least five years after the crash to be willing to dip their toes back in the stock market.

Those who have done so have been rewarded. Now that many of us have our entire foot, leg and neck immersed in equities, it is time to expect some downside ahead.

Before you ask, no, I don't know when it will happen. If I did, I could retire on my tropical island where I would "buy low and sell high." That said, an exit plan, if that is what you want to do, should be percolating in that head of yours.

For most of us, however, any attempt to sell at the top will be met with frustration, lost opportunity, and in many cases, an emotional decision to re-enter the market at even higher prices. The fact is that major declines are part and parcel of investing in the stock market. Most long-term investors who plan to go to cash may succeed, at first, but they almost always fail to re-invest, or if they do, they re-invest too early or too late.

Sure, you will always hear about this guy or that woman who trades the market. The myth is that these "uber kans" almost always sell at the top, (in the nick of time) and buy back at the lows when everyone is running for the exits. Don't believe it. Rest assured that the majority of day traders who are constantly buying and selling lose more money than they make and would have made more money if they had simply stuck with the markets.

That does not mean you have to simply take your lumps, although some lump-taking should be expected and it is painful. One can always dial down your risk, become more conservative, shift your investments into more bonds etc. There are risks in that strategy.

Take the run-up to the presidential elections, as an example. Several of my clients were convinced that a Trump presidency would usher in a financial meltdown, WW III, and all sorts of evil developments. They wanted to sell everything and go to cash.

I resisted, convincing many of them to stay with the markets. Several insisted, however, that they wanted to reduce their risks and become more defensive. I obliged their requests. The results: they made about half of what they could have if they had stayed fully invested, but still made more than if they had simply exited the markets and gone to cash. Each investor must
 decide how much risk they are willing to take and act accordingly.

Before you hit the panic button, however, I see no indications that we will incur anything more than the normal sell-off. Price declines are simply the cost of doing business in the stock market, like paying taxes or insuring your home.

Neither am I predicting a decline is right around the corner. But when it does occur (and it will), be prepared. Understand and plan for it now. If you don't know, give me a call.