Faith Read Xenos
Principal, Singer Xenos Wealth Management
Coral Gables

Avocation: Renovating a two-story, 1926 Spanish-style house in Coral Gables.
Interests: Cycling, unusual travel destinations. She visited Egypt in March.
Philanthropy: Xenos is active in Project: New Born, which supports the neonatal center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, and in the Women’s Cancer League and Partners.

For most people with a stake in the market, the year has been, to use a polite and overused word, volatile. Faith Read Xenos knows that as well as anyone. The 42-year-old financial planner and the firm she heads with partner Marc Singer depend on the value of client assets for revenues. Asset values go down; fees go with them. And there are clients to face. “They’ve been remarkably resilient. I’m not complaining,” Xenos says. “Sometimes we feel kind of gloomy, but we try not to show it.”

If not for the darn market, things look good for Singer Xenos. Asset growth in 2001 was roughly double the typical year’s 20% as market declines convinced people to seek professional advice. The firm is up to 250 clients with an average of $1.8 million in Singer Xenos portfolios.

Xenos and Singer and about 100 other financial advisers nationally this year started a savings bank to provide trust company services. A Worth magazine ranking placed Singer Xenos among the top 250 U.S. financial advisers.

Raised in Miami, Xenos co-founded the firm with Singer in 1988. They stayed small, adding a third professional only two years ago and a fourth this year. Baffled at times by clients’ quirky choices, Xenos developed an interest in behavioral finance. One thing she learned: Research shows people feel a loss at twice the ratio they feel a gain. So she’s been a bit surprised to see individual investors hold firm relative to institutions in post-Sept. 11 declines.

“I think there is a sense this is happening to everybody across the board,” Xenos says. For both investors and their advisers, “You need a certain character to go through times like this.”