Forte reaches top of Barron's list

Palm Harbor financial planner Ami Forte has come close to the top of Barron's annual list of the nation's top financial planners in recent years. Now she can hold up her number-one finger with pride.

Forte and her team at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney posted assets of $1.7 billion last year, resulting in the top ranking released earlier this month. That's 22% higher than the team's previous second-place ranking.

A 52-year-old New York native and one-time fashion model, Forte attributes her success to reinforcing ties with her millionaire clients throughout the financial crisis.

“Perhaps they didn't understand back in 2007, when I urged them to go into cash or bonds,” she told Barron's. “But now they see that served them well, and it actually gives them more confidence when I suggest what they need to be doing today.”

Lately her clients are interested in discussing the BP oil leak and the European fiscal crisis, she said, but her job is to keep them focused on straightforward investments and “managing to the downside.”

Her six-member team in Pinellas County will get a familiar addition when her 27-year-old son, a veteran of Morgan Stanley's trading floor, joins in July.