Promises Will Be Broken 

Nov 1, 2008,

BY Addison Wiggin

Are you factoring future Social Security payments into your clients’ financial plans? Bad idea. ...

"Principal Protected" Products Weren't 

Nov 1, 2008,

By John Aidan Byrne

Some Clients Are Suing...

Gurus: When It's Time To Buy, You Won't Want To 

Nov 1, 2008,

By David A. Geracioti

Inveterate contrarian and former “perma-bear” Steve Leuthold is bullish. ...

Thinking Outside The (Style) Box 

Oct 1, 2008,

By Stan Luxenberg

Investing orthodoxy stipulates that advisors should choose fund managers who don’t stray from their investing style...

Brokers Charged In Fraudulently Selling $1bn Of ARS To Retail Clients 

Sep 3, 2008,

By John Churchill

In the first case of its kind, the SEC announced today that it has charged two individual financial advisors with fraud related to the sale of more than $1 billion in auction-rate securities....

Don't Drink It, Trade It 

Sep 1, 2008,

Christina Mucciolo

Wine might emerge as a bona fide alternative asset class. ...

Mutual Funds: Planes, Trains and Utilities 

Sep 1, 2008,

By Stan Luxenberg

Water utilities, toll roads and airports are steady revenue generators, despite a slowing economic climate....

Currencies: The Come-Back Greenback? 

Sep 1, 2008,

By Brad Zigler

The dollar has been showing some spine lately. Is it time to buy dollars?...

Gurus: Blame The Gub’ment? 

Sep 1, 2008,

David A. Geracioti

A controversial economist says government attempts to increase home ownership are at the root of the sub-prime mortgage mess....

ETFs: Dollar Damage 

Sep 1, 2008,

By Brad Zigler

A controversial economist says government attempts to increase home ownership are at the root of the sub-prime mortgage mess....

Generations 

Sep 1, 2008,

By Kevin McKinley

Sometimes it’s in your clients best interest not to advertise the charitable donations they make....

Fund House: In Search of Alpha And Good Pricing 

Sep 1, 2008,

By Lisa A. Cohen

Not satisfied with having ushered in a new era of efficient, low cost, investment-savvy pooled investment products, ETF issuers insist on trying to reengineer their own (already pretty darn good) invention....

ETFs and Wirehouse Reps: Perfect Together 

Jul 1, 2008,

By Stan Luxenberg

The growing acceptance of ETFs among wirehouse advisors demonstrates how far they have grown professionally. They’re not your stock jockeys of yore....

ETFs’ Bull Run 

Jul 1, 2008,

Christina Mucciolo

ETF fund assets and numbers continue to soar in 2008. ...

Hedging Your Bets 

Jul 1, 2008,

Kristen French

Active versus passive? That’s an old battle. But the stakes have recently been raised....

Mutual Funds: Forever Giants  

Jul 1, 2008,

Kristen French

Mutual funds still account for a full 93 percent of investment assets in the U.S....

Pay It Out 

Jun 1, 2008,

By Stan Luxenberg

Now that the Baby Boomer generation is retiring in droves, fund companies are focusing on a thorny question: How can retirees obtain reliable income from...

How Do You Like Me Now? 

Jun 1, 2008,

By John Churchill

When it began, the credit crisis had little to do with retail brokerage. After all, the fixed income departments were the ones who made the bad mortgage...

The Real Rainmakers 

Jun 1, 2008,

David A. Geracioti Editor-In-Chief

There was a time when the institutional side of a securities firm would walk with a swagger. After all, it was you, the retail financial advisor, who...

The Inverse Of Gold? 

Jun 1, 2008,

By Brad Zigler

Sports and financial markets have more than a little in common. Just as a sports contest takes several innings or quarters to develop, bulls and bears...

A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY 

May 1, 2008,

BY JOHN CHURCHILL

Are closed-end fund preferred-auction securities safe? We consider CFPs to be the conservative's conservative security....

Variable Annuity Providers Cozy Up To RIAs 

May 1, 2008,

By Alan Lavine

John Ritter is an unusual case, but he may also be a harbinger of things to come. A fee-only advisor with Ritter Daniher Financial Advisory, an RIA in...

How To Play The Agriculture Game 

May 1, 2008,

By Brad Zigler

During the heyday of paper assets, stockbrokers regularly lorded over their commodity-dealing brethren. It wasn't personal, mind you, just the nature...

The Auction-Rate Mess And You 

May 1, 2008,

David A. Geracioti Editor-In-Chief

In September 2006, an SEC official gave a remarkably prescient speech to an obscure organization (well, obscure to me, anyway). Martha Mahan Haines, chief...

Survivorship Life Back In Favor 

May 1, 2008,

By Alan Lavine

Despite current laws that reduce the estate-tax bite, survivorship life insurance is making a comeback as an estate-planning tool among some advisors....

Beating The Bear 

Apr 1, 2008,

By Stan Luxenberg

Academics have long scorned actively managed mutual funds. Instead of spending money on managers who attempt to beat the market (however that is defined),...

How Low Can You Go? 

Apr 1, 2008,

By Stan Luxenberg

With credit markets jittery and the economy on the lip of recession (or in recession, depending upon whom you ask), real estate funds have plummeted....

Focused And Then Some 

Apr 1, 2008,

By Stan Luxenberg

Competing fiercely for the attention of investors, fund companies have brought out a wave of specialized offerings. Many of the choices which include...

CAPITAL HILL CONTRIBUTIONS 

Mar 1, 2008,

Christina Mucciolo

Wall Street is shifting loyalties. So far in the 2008 election cycle, the securities and investment industry has showered the Democratic Party with contributions....

Playing The Commodity Craze 

Feb 1, 2008,

By Brad Zigler

When the search for alpha takes conservative portfolios such as the Harvard and Yale endowments into the land of bellies, beans and bullion, investors...

Abroad At Home 

Feb 1, 2008,

By Stan Luxenberg

Using a wide-ranging investing style, Peter Lynch dominated the fund world during the 1980s. The manager of Fidelity Magellan was known to pick stocks...

Merrill Abandons CDO Biz, But Only for a Moment 

Jan 31, 2008,

By Kristen French

Maybe Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain just wanted to test his audience. At an investment conference today, Thain said that Merrill would abandon CDO underwriting and other structured-credit businesses, the very ones that led to the subprime meltdown on Wall Street and beyond. And then he took it back. ...

To Catch A Muni Index 

Jan 1, 2008,

By Stan Luxenberg

Since the first exchange-traded bond fund appeared in 2002, financial rocket scientists have struggled to launch a tax-free ETF. The development efforts...

Meet the Retirement Geek 

Nov 1, 2007,

BY DAVID ADLER

Moshe Milevsky, professor of Finance at York University Canada, is a widely recognized innovator in the field of retirement-income planning, insurance...

Investors see a revival of growth funds in 2007 

Oct 1, 2007,

Stan Luxenberg

For years, investors have been waiting for a revival of growth funds. The moment may have arrived. During the first seven months of 2007, large-cap growth...