November 1, 2005
REPorts
A Shopping Allowance: The Newest Recruiting Tool
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Kristen French
If you need more proof that competition for top financial advisors is growing more intense, look no further than First Allied Securities. The San Diego-based...
A Less-Taxing Retirement
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, Kevin Burke
Fear of a too-small nest egg is the driving force behind many an advisor/client relationship. But such a high level of anxiety might be out of place....
Market-Timer Banned and Fined
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, John Churchill
Theodore Sihpol III, a former broker at Banc of America Securities (BAS), and poster boy for the market-timing scandals and the first target of Spitzer...
Ion the Market
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, John Churchill
Guy Cramer, president of United Dynamics Corp., says he has a very unique formula for forecasting stock market developments he measures the level of positive...
You're Worth So Much More
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By John Churchill
Clients might not agree, but there's rising evidence that advisors are not charging enough for their services. According to Pricing Strategies for Maximum...
Sufferin' Taxpayer Blues
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, John Churchill
Whether you're looking for a seasonally appropriate gag gift for a client, or just a way to drive someone completely nuts on a long road trip, check out...
We Told You So
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM
Our October cover story, Your Underpaid Caddy, highlighted the plight of the sales assistant. A recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers echoed our survey's...
Well Worn
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, Erin Schulte
Wall Street is a place where trends can cycle nearly as fast as they do in the fashion world, but in the post-bubble years, investors are treating dividend...
Passing On
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, John Churchill
The Creole state has the dubious distinction of being the last state in the Union to still require designated beneficiaries to submit to probate proceedings...
Bonus Bait
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, Kristen French
Morgan Stanley is planning to offer bonuses to brokers who expand their production in 2006. In mid-October, President Zoe Cruz told brokers in a broadcast...
Blotter
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM
Cooked Books: Philip Bennett, former CEO of Refco Inc., the largest independent commodities and futures exchange, was arrested on securities fraud charges...
Doing More With What You've Got
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, John Churchill
Advisory coaches will tell you that the first step toward building a great practice is believing that you can. According to a new wealth management report,...
Stockbroker Rock
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, Kristen French
The insurance industry is not often a source of artistic inspiration, but there is at least one exception: San Francisco-based techno band The duo, whose...
Merrill Carrot to Advest Reps
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By John Churchill
Merrill Lynch has proffered retention packages to newly acquired Advest Group's financial advisors, and according to industry observers, the packages...
The Ameriprise Challenge
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Kristen French
Now that it's standing on its own two feet, Ameriprise Financial is ready to spend some dollars and it's got more than a few to spare, thanks to a $1...
Cover Package: Retirement Now!
Trolling for 401(k) Treasure
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Kristen French
If you haven't gotten your hooks into enough baby boomer clients those 70 million-plus Americans born between 1946 and 1964 who are now heading toward...
Medicare Drug Benefit 101
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Lynn O'Shaughnessy
IN OUR NATION'S HISTORY, there have been plenty of government programs that have choked on their own red tape. So it's noteworthy when an expert, who...
A Friendlier 401(k)
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Lynn O'Shaughnessy
When Congress created the Roth 401(k) back in 2001, hardly anyone, including your clients, probably noticed or even cared. Financial advisors and investors...
Trading Down to a Better Retirement
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Todd K. Ballenger
It appears that the number of articles mentioning a real estate bubble now far exceeds the number of news stories warning of a stock market bubble before...
Ignoring the Bear...And Other Mistakes Retirees Make
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Lynn O'Shaughnessy
A survey in USA Today once concluded that Americans' most deep-seated fear, after cancer and car wrecks, was running out of money during retirement. The...
Features
The Money Squeeze
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By John Churchill
There's one thing that stands between the big retail brokerage firms and the high profit margins that the executives of these firms and their investors...
Reshuffling the Decks
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Kevin Burke
The biggest brokerage houses on Wall Street are giving themselves a makeover. Their reinventions, in some ways, are part of the usual ebb and flow between...
Investing
Seeing Tomorrow
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, John Downes
Your clients probably know how hard it is to pick outperforming stocks. What they may not fully grasp is how hard it is to choose a winning mutual fund...
The Worthy
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Stan Luxenberg
Back during the buying panic of the 1990s, it was fashionable to believe: Sell your losers, and run with your winners. Of course, one of the lessons of...
Alpha Dogs
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Stan Luxenberg
Dedicated followers of the Clipper Fund may have been dismayed when longtime managers James Gipson and Michael Sandler left the fund recently. For many...
Actively Adding Value to Passive Investments
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Kevin Burke
On the face of it, the combination seems counterintuitive. On one hand, you have professional financial advisors looking for a way to add value and justify...
I Want To Be Like Julian (Robertson)
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By John Churchill
Until this past September, Jeffrey Glusman was a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch, a rising star sharing a book worth more than $250 million with a...
Resurrected
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Bob Hirschfeld
Victor Niederhoffer might be the world's most eccentric trader. The son of a Jewish cop, the Brooklyn-born Niederhoffer doesn't wear shoes in the office,...
Special Report: 529s
Will Reform Drive Brokers From 529 Sales?
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Lauren Barack
It wasn't tainted research. It wasn't late trading. It wasn't even good for a lot of headlines. But it was another ugly moment for investment advisors...
Today's Lesson: Consolidation
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Lauren Barack
For the little commissions they generate, 529 plans have required quite a lot of effort on the part of financial advisors. When the business got started...
Broker/Dealer Supplement
Going All the Way
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Christopher O'Leary
Across the country, registered rep employees of national broker/dealers daydream of chucking it all the scripted days, the morning squawk box and going...
Creating an Escape Plan
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Christopher O'Leary
Certainly, going indie has a lot of appeal. And there are lots of stories of happy former wirehouse brokers who have flourished on their own. But it doesn't...
A Crusade Against Indies?
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Christopher O'Leary
In September, Dale Brown, the chief executive of the Financial Services Institute (FSI), a lobbying group representing 106 member firms with more than...
Special Advertising Supplement: Custody and Clearing
Relieving the Cost-Basis Headache
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Thomas Costa
Ron Marino remembers what it used to be like when a new broker joined UBS and had to transfer clients' cost-basis information manually. Because this was...
Wringing the Risk Out of Corporate Actions
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Brett Lancaster
The world of corporate actions has become increasingly complex for retail brokerage professionals. Not only are customers investing in a dizzying array...
The Practice
Changing Gears
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Anne Field
For this second installment of Fix My Practice (the first one appeared in the September 2005 issue), we talked to an insurance industry veteran who recently...
Supplemental Inquiry
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM
Q: Is there any way my employer can find out if I receive W-2 income from other sources, which, by the way, are not from other brokerage firms? When I...
The Clash of Perception and Reality
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Janet Arrowood
One of the largest inhibitors of insurance sales is a perception gap between clients and advisors. The gap is highlighted in the findings of two separate...
A Plan for All Seasons
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Daniel L. Daniels, Esq., David T. Leibell, Esq. and Russ Alan Prince
Anyone who has ever watched a relay race or a football game knows that a lot can go wrong during a handoff. The same is true when control of a business...
You Have to Ask
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Bill Singer
In October 2003, a back-office glitch made Robert Burns the recipient of $12,000 that did not belong to him. Burns was an advisor with Merrill Lynch,...
In Good Company
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Mindy Diamond
Registered reps serving multiple high-net-worth clients typically benefit from a benign domino effect. In many cases, an affluent-focused practice has...
Successful Prospecting Habits
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Matt Oechsli
If your pipeline is full of affluent prospects, you can skip this month's column. If, however, you could use more affluent prospects and new affluent...
Elusive Loyalty
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Hannah Shaw Grove and Russ Alan Prince
It's a serious conundrum for financial advisors: Their success hinges on their ability to cultivate loyalty in their most affluent clients, but many are...
Doing the Family a Favor
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Kevin McKinley
I've got a way to boost your tax bill right now is one of the least effective ways to generate positive client interest, second only to a sign on your...
Endpiece
The Puzzler
Nov 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By John Kador
Be thankful you already have a job. Job interviews at many large companies feature brainteasers and puzzles that test the problem-solving skills of an...
