Mar 24, 2011
By Jerry Gleeson
Just two months after it announced the acquisition of three RIAs with $2.2 billion in combined assets, United Capital said today it has bought another practice, Vantage Point Advisors....
Mar 23, 2011
By Philip Palaveev
Securities America is just the latest broker/dealer to face financial distress. With so many firms falling into financial or legal hot water lately, financial advisors need to be prepared for the worst. Here’s a checklist for your Plan B. ...
Mar 22, 2011
By Jerry Gleeson
Wealth managers with family business owners for clients may want to prepare for some rough transitions ahead. A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of more than 1,600 family-owned or managed businesses around the world found that 27 percent expect to change hands in the next five years. But 47 percent of the companies had no succession plans in place....
Mar 22, 2011
By Charles Paikert
Social media may be all the rage, but traditional media plays a more important role in wealth managers’ marketing plans for high net worth clients...
Mar 21, 2011
By Diana Britton
“It is very unsettling. They have 2,000 reps that are trying to figure out what to do next. It also poses some interesting questions for the industry . . ."
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Mar 21, 2011
By Jerry Gleeson
The Charles Schwab Corp. (NYSE:SCHW) said today it will pay about $1 billion in stock for optionsXpress Holdings (NASDAQ-GS:OXPS), the retail online brokerage business, in a deal it expects to close in the third quarter. The deal will give Schwab, which has about $1.6 trillion in client assets, larger exposure in the fast-paced options industry....
Mar 18, 2011
By Stan Luxenberg
Should you pay attention to Morningstar’s star ratings? No, say a growing number of advisors. The stars are based on risk-adjusted past performance, and the past doesn’t necessarily predict the future, the advisors say. Instead of trying to pick tomorrow’s winning active managers, it pays to rely on index funds. ...
Mar 17, 2011
By Diana Britton
Securities America will face a federal court judge Friday to decide whether the independent broker/dealer gets preliminary approval for a $21 million settlement agreement related to allegedly fraudulent private placements sold by the company. Firm says FA retention is nevertheless still strong....
Mar 16, 2011
By Charles Paikert
Lessons learned from the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 are serving wealth managers well as they—and their clients—confront a cascade of unsettling economic news from the Mideast and Japan....
Mar 16, 2011
By David A. Geracioti
With Registered Rep.'s Independent Broker/Dealer Report Card, you get a chance to score your own firm — anonymously. In an upcoming issue, we will provide our readers with hard numbers that compare various independent broker/dealers, to see which are the leaders in service, and which firms are falling behind.
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Mar 15, 2011
By Bill Singer, RR Legal Columnist
FINRA deemed that an advisor’s tweets about a public company were unbalanced and lacked the necessary disclosure about the “substantial positions” held in the stock by the advisor and her family....
Mar 15, 2011
By Alan Lavine
Reps are turning to index universal life insurance to bridge the risk gap between low-rate permanent life insurance and riskier variable universal life. With variable universal life policies, the cash value is invested, typically in mutual funds....
Mar 14, 2011
By Anne Field
The one constant about change is that people hate it. Trouble is, if your employees don’t embrace whatever change it is you want to introduce, you can forget about it: You won’t succeed. ...
Mar 11, 2011
By Diana Britton
MetLife has launched a new educational campaign for advisors who want to target affluent women, due to renewed interest in this market, the insurer said. AXA Equitable and John Hancock Funds have also recently added resources for financial advisors who cater to women. ...
Mar 11, 2011
By Mark Miller
Long-term care expenses pose one of the greatest risks your clients will face in retirement. And unless your clients are wealthy enough to self-insure against that risk, long-term care insurance (LTCI) is the best way to mitigate it. Trouble is, LTCI insurance is a tough market to navigate – for clients and planners alike. In the past year, current policyholders have been shocked by double-digit premium hikes from big underwriters, including John Hancock and Genworth. ...
Mar 10, 2011
By Kristen French
In testimony before Congress Thursday, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro made a case for an increase in the agency’s funding to $1.407 billion for 2012—describing the progress the SEC has made on internal reforms since she took the job two years ago, and enumerating the enormous increases in its responsibilities over the past six years. She seems to have gotten extra ammunition from the early release to Congress today of a Boston Consulting Group study of the SEC’s internal organization, which included recommended reforms for the agency. ...
Mar 9, 2011
By Kristen French
Morgan Stanley (MS) will lay off a total of 200 to 300 trainees and lower-producing financial advisers during the first quarter, and most of those cuts have already taken place, a source knowledgeable about the situation told Registered Rep. Dow Jones newswires broke the story Wednesday....
Mar 9, 2011
By Kristen French
A couple of law students from Oxford, Miss., backed by vocal investor advocate Mercer Bullard, have ambitious plans to create an SRO (self-regulatory organization) for investment advisers. Their group would rival FINRA, the SRO for broker/dealers and currently the leading contender for the job. ...
Mar 9, 2011
By Charles Paikert
Talent development is finally getting its day in the sun within banks’ wealth management departments, a development that many industry experts believe is long overdue....
Mar 8, 2011
By Diana Britton
The hybrid hype is growing. Independent broker-dealers have lately been ramping up their efforts to attract hybrid advisors, launching new recruiting efforts and rolling out integrated commission and fee-based platforms and hybrid-specific services. Meanwhile, two major custodians released reports about the importance of the hybrid market in the past two weeks. ...
Mar 8, 2011
By Charles Paikert
Bankers need to flaunt their status as fiduciaries to battle expected competition from broker/dealers, ...
Mar 7, 2011
By Jerry Gleeson
Morgan Stanley is considering new names for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, the 18,000-advisor retail brokerage joint venture it created in a deal with then-Smith Barney owner Citigroup, back in 2009. ...
Mar 7, 2011
By John Aidan Byrne
In an email memo, Krawcheck, the head of Bank of America’s wealth management business, told Merrill’s thundering herd that the bank’s new “garden leave” employment policy agreement won’t apply to them. Under that agreement, advisers working at BofA’s US Trust unit must commit to stay at U.S. Trust for sixty days after they resign, and avoid soliciting clients for eight months after they resign, in order to qualify for 2010 bonuses and their continued employment. ...
Mar 7, 2011
By Charles Paikert
Wealth managers working for banks are grappling with the fallout of last year’s Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, according to top banking officials speaking at the opening general session of the American Bankers Association’s annual Wealth Management and Trust Conference in Miami Beach this morning....
Mar 7, 2011
By Charles Paikert
The U.S. economy is moving from recovery into expansion, and could grow 4 percent this year, according to David Kelly, chief market strategist of JP Morgan Funds, who struck an optimistic note as the keynote speaker of the American Bankers Association’s annual Wealth Management and Trust Conference in Miami Beach Sunday....
