November 1, 2007
Reports
Charles Schwab Kicking Ass(ets)
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By John Churchill
Wall Street Brokerage Giants like Merrill Lynch may not see Charles Schwab as a big threat, but the firm has come a very long way from its scrappy upstart...
Bob Palmer
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Kristen French
What book has had the greatest impact on your career? Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crocket Johnson. Not only is it a great story it's a great foundation...
Boris Schlossberg
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Kristen French
Registered Rep. spoke with Boris Schlossberg about the dollar's recent decline. Registered Rep.: What are the major reasons behind the weakness in the...
Blotter
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, John Churchill
It's All In The Name: The SEC recently charged Robert Ray White Samples, principal of Pot O' Gold Financial Services in Denver, Colo., with misappropriating...
Moving Markets: Robert W. Baird
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Christina Mucciolo
Here's one way to evaluate equity research: Measure the impact it has on stock prices. Bespoke Investment Group, a financial research firm, did just that,...
Wealth Management Elite
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Halah Touryalai
Everybody says they offer wealth management these days. But do they? Not really, says research and consulting group CEG Worldwide. Wealth managers use...
Mutual Funds The Wealthy Prefer
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, John Churchill
Hedge Funds, private equity and other investments may be an emerging playground for the rich, but mutual funds still have their place in the hearts of...
Comings & Goings
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Halah Touryalai
Randall W. Epright has been appointed executive vice president and chief operating officer of AIG Advisor Group, and senior vice president of Operations...
All the Yuan In China
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Christina Mucciolo
If you're looking for more billion-dollar prospects, you might want to relocate to China. The yuan-loving country has more billionaires than any other...
Correction
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM
In a story titled Meet the New Panic, Just Like the Old Panic in our October issue, we wrote that the co-author of The Panic of 1907 was Robert F. Burns....
Always A Woman
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, John Churchill
Is your revenue production down? Not bringing in those million dollar accounts? Maybe your branch manager has threatened to move you to some backwater...
Wish List: Financial Makeover
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Kristen French
A regal room, the perfect suit, a six-pack or an unassailable nest egg? Lucky for you, most people want the last thing on that list the most. At least,...
Show Us (Less) Money!
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, John Churchill
How much corporate bigwigs get paid is a hot topic this political season, as the gap between the rich and the poor has reached its widest point in 60...
Hottie Seeks Fat Cat, No Dice
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Christina Mucciolo
Is there anything you can't find on Craigslist these days? How about good financial advice? A self-proclaimed spectacularly beautiful female (aged 25)...
Package: Retirement 411
The Retirement Savings Heretics
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BY DAVID ADLER
How Much Money Will I Need in Retirement? What's the number? Ask any financial advisor and he will offer you this rule of thumb: To live in retirement...
Bonds Are Bad For Retirees
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Stan Luxenberg
For decades, most financial advisors have clung to a central belief about asset allocation: The older you are, the more fixed income you should hold....
The Next 401(k) Plan
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Stan Luxenberg
When 401(k) plans appeared in the 1980s, some Wall Street observers hailed the accounts as an innovative step in the evolution of capitalism: opening...
Meet the Retirement Geek
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, 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...
Features
Setting the Perfect Price: a Fool's Errand?
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BY CHRISTINA MUCCIOLO
Are you charging enough? That's hard to say. These days, discounting runs rampant in the financial-advisory industry: Firms allow giant haircuts on commissions,...
Practice Makes Perfect
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BY HALAH TOURYALAI
Christiane Delessert, an advisor with National Financial Partners in Waltham, Mass., was thinking about retiring. But like many reps, she didn't have...
The Expungement Crusade
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BY KAREN DONOVAN
Wall Street Breathed a Sigh of Relief when Eliot Spitzer moved into the governor's mansion in Albany. Word was that Andrew Cuomo, New York's newly elected...
Stifel Who?
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BY JOHN CHURCHILL
Takeover bait. It's a description most regional brokerage firms have become accustomed to and for good reason. Several have been gobbled up over the years,...
Investing
No Pain, No Gain
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Brad Zigler
Most clients wouldn't question the superiority of a 10-percent return over a 5 percent one. Or would they? For some accounts, it's not so much where they...
Growth Investing, Bloodlessly
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jonathan Moreland
Ah, the benign indifference of numbers. If only we could regard them with a cold heart. Nearly every professional money manager claims that he does, that...
The Wolf of Wall Street
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jordan Belfort
Blame It On The Quaaludes: Jordan Belfort grossed millions as a drug-fueled pump-and-dump artist. He eventually served 22 months in prison and spent one...
The Practice
Tax Planning: In House or Out?
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Anne Field
For the past few years, Mark Kemp has offered low-cost income-tax preparation services to the mostly middle-income clientele of his Plymouth Meeting,...
Giving Away An IRA
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Kevin McKinley
Tis the season for giving and receiving, as well as for high-pressure television ads that force you to search frantically for the button on the remote...
Smart Dollars For College
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Kevin McKinley
The next time one of your clients is passing out cigars to celebrate the birth of a baby, tell him that if he wants to educate that bouncing bundle of...
The CMA Promise
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Guy Manuel Andre Cappon, Stephan Mignot, of The CBM Group, Inc.
Exactly 30 years ago, Merrill Lynch launched the first CMA (Cash Management Account). The revolutionary new product combined an investment account, a...
Thinking Long Term
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Kristen French
Long-term care is not an easy thing to talk about with aging clients. In fact, most folks would rather contemplate their deaths than illness or infirmity...
False Advertising
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM
Q: I provide performance reports on the accounts of some of my selected clients to prospective clients. Any information by which a client could be identified...
Beating Recession Depression
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Stephen Gresham
If you've been an advisor for even a few years, then the sub-prime mortgage crisis probably has you feeling like it's d vu all over again. A high-growth...
Retirement Heresy
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, David A. Geracioti Editor-In-Chief
Is conventional financial planning good for your financial health? Before you automatically respond, Yes, of course it is, and angrily turn the page,...
Don't Do As I Say
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Bill Singer
From September 1999 until January 2005, Salvatore F. Sodano was the chairman and CEO of the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), a quasi-governmental, self-regulatory...
When Change Is Good
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Mindy Diamond
Why switch firms late in the game? There are plenty of reasons to stay put until retirement: deferred compensation, familiarity with the system at your...
Thinking Like The Affluent
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Matt Oechsli
There is such a thing as the affluent touch: It's a matter of attitude and approach. In fact, this quality is often the very thing that makes one financial...
What She Wants
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Mary Kate McGrath
This one's for you, guys the gift-giving handicapped. I bet you have no idea what to get your gal. Well, how about a little help? We've culled together...
Smart Dollars for College: Facts and Figures
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM
The next time one of your clients is passing out cigars to celebrate the birth of a baby, tell him that if he wants to educate that bouncing bundle of...
A Special Supplement: The Independent Life
Sure is a good time to be a financial advisor
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM
Not only is the investing public clamoring for financial advice, but broker/dealers (and registered investment advisories) are searching for advisor talent...
Recruits In The Driver's Seat
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Erik Kolb
Recruiting in the independent broker/dealer business has reached a fever pitch. The signs are everywhere. Just take Raymond James, where the number of...
Fighting The Brand X Syndrome
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Erik Kolb
Picking an independent broker/dealer to join is a daunting task. After all, on paper, most independent b/d networks provide similar platforms and services....
Do-It-Yourself Broker/Dealer
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Halah Touryalai
By now, advisors have been bombarded with talk of going independent. It's a phrase that is regularly circulated in the hallways and offices of wirehouses...
The Top 20 Biggest Indies
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM
A list of the biggest independent b/d firms by number of reps. Firm: Producing Reps Average Payout Recruiting Executive Clearing Firm Parent Co Linsco/Private...
America's Top 100 Independent Advisors
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM
There are close to 90,000 independent broker/dealer reps in the industry, more than any other channel. Here are the Top 100 ranked by assets under management....
