Essays by Connor Houlihan

About these essays

These essays are written for readers who want a practical view of the systems behind financial products and professional life. Connor Houlihan writes from thirteen years inside securities and fund distribution, 2011 to 2024, and the aim is to explain how things actually work: how a fund gets onto an advisor’s platform, what a share class really costs, which questions a due-diligence analyst asks, and what a public filing will and will not tell you. The intended reader is a financial advisor, an analyst, a student of the industry, or anyone who wants to understand the machinery behind their own accounts.

Each substantial article identifies its sources, date, author, and the boundary between fact and opinion. Where a claim comes from a prospectus, a regulatory filing, or a published study, the essay says so and links to it. Where a passage is Connor’s judgment from experience, it is labeled as such. Articles carry a publication date, and material corrections are noted on the page rather than made silently. None of this is individualized investment advice; the FAQ explains that boundary in more detail.

Fund distribution and products

• Fund Distribution Explained: how asset managers get their funds in front of advisors and institutions, who the intermediaries are, and who pays whom along the way.
• Mutual Fund Share Classes and Fees: what the letters after a fund’s name mean, how loads, 12b-1 fees, and expense ratios differ by class, and how to read the fee table in a prospectus.
• Fund Due Diligence: A Practical Guide for Advisors: a working checklist for evaluating a fund and its manager before putting client money into it.

Due diligence and public records

• Due Diligence in Plain English: the questions worth asking about any financial firm or product, written for readers without an industry background.
• How to Read Form ADV Without Getting Lost: a guided tour of the registration form every investment adviser files, with notes on where the useful information tends to hide.

Readers who want to apply the same approach to Connor Houlihan’s own record can start with his FINRA BrokerCheck entry and the Securities Background page.

Career, Connecticut and golf

• Why I Left Fidelity: nearly four years at a large brokerage as the start of a career rather than a break from one, the 2015 move to the asset-manager side of distribution in Chicago, and what stayed with him.
• Finance and Creativity: why the numbers are the start of the work and not the end: a model is an argument about the future, a product explanation is a translation, and a strategy is a story that has to survive the evidence.
• Golf as Business: golf as a business and performance practice, with every shot a decision made under incomplete information, and what course strategy and strokes-gained analytics teach about process, measurement, and judgment.
• Finance and Community in Connecticut: a small state with several financial centers, from Hartford’s insurers to the Fairfield County corridor, and why place, relationships, and local knowledge still shape how business gets done.

New essays are added as they are finished. The Connecticut section gathers the local pieces, and the Press and Media page lists outside interviews and articles. Suggestions for future subjects, and corrections to anything Connor Houlihan has published here, are welcome through the Contact page.