Jan 1, 2012
By Kevin McKinley
Retirement account beneficiary designations are easy to overlook, but the consequences of doing so can be severe.
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Jan 1, 2012
By Kristen French
Women FAs are in greater demand, but wirehouses have their work cut out for them. ...
Jan 1, 2012
By Lauren Barack
How much is Twitter making you?...
Dec 30, 2011
By Diana Britton
Year to date through November 2011, retail investors have redeemed $61.6 billion from large-cap equity mutual funds, $11.2 billion from mid-cap growth funds, $13.4 billion from world stock funds, and $15.7 billion from municipal bond funds, according to Morningstar data. ...
Dec 29, 2011
By Jerry Gleeson
A year after its launch, a New York-based services provider for high-end wealth managers hopes to draw more advisors to its platform by offering access to the kind of research that’s usually available only to institutional players. Dynasty Financial Partners expects to unveil its new program by the end of the first quarter of 2012. ...
Dec 23, 2011
By Diana Britton
Following the twin market implosions of the past decade—first tech, then real estate—many retail financial advisors are looking for more tactical, meaning active, asset allocation solutions for client portfolios to dampen volatility, improve total returns and avoid market catastrophes. ...
Dec 21, 2011
By Stephen Boswell and Kevin Nichols
Los Angeles: “I’m excited about meeting with this new prospect tomorrow,” started John. He continued with, “I know there needs to be some rapport building before I jump into any business, do you have a list of questions I can ask as conversation starters?”...
Dec 21, 2011
By Diana Britton
Earlier this year, Registered Rep. launched its first annual Independent Broker/Dealer Report Card, giving IBD advisors the chance to grade their firms and see how they stack up to the rest of the industry. ...
Dec 21, 2011
By Diana Britton
Study after study has documented how financial advisors are using social media these days, and webinar after webinar purports to show them how to use social media tools to reel in new assets. Really financial advisors are just getting started, and already, the bloom seems to be coming off the rose, Aite Group says....
Dec 21, 2011
By Charles Paikert
The giving season is here, but what’s being given, at least by philanthropic-minded high-net-worth clients, is changing.
The standard gift to a charity or foundation has traditionally been a highly-appreciated, publicly-traded security. But increasingly, wealthy clients are donating non-cash assets such as diverse as private property, businesses to even commodities such as soybeans or timber. ...
Dec 19, 2011
By Alan Lavine
Financial advisors are increasingly concerned about the financial strength of the insurance companies whose products they sell. They cite low interest rates and exposure to the stock market via product principal guarantees as grounds for their concern, according to a fall study by LIMRA....
Dec 19, 2011
By Lynn O’Shaughnessy
Millions of teenagers will be taking the SAT and ACT tests this year, which always generates tons of stress for the test takers and their parents. ...
Dec 16, 2011
By Diana Britton
Erado, which provides social media compliance and archiving software for broker/dealers, plans to expand its operations into Western Europe, Canada and possibly Japan next year, and expects to add at least 30 new employees in 2012. ...
Dec 16, 2011
By Jerry Gleeson
Financial advisor Rick Bloom is better equipped than most to handle an SEC audit. Both a lawyer and a CPA, Bloom runs Bloom Asset Management in Farmington Hills, Mich., a registered investment advisor with $830 million in assets under management. ...
Dec 15, 2011
By Kristen French and Diana Britton
The highly politicized industry battle over who will oversee investment advisers—SEC, the government regulator, or FINRA, a privately run group—heated up Thursday as Boston Consulting Group, an independent research firm, issued a report on an important piece of the debate that has been missing until now: how much each option will cost. ...
Dec 15, 2011
By Diana Britton
The fastest-growing advisors in 2012 are likely going to be those who can become more calculated and deliberate about the types of clients they do business with. According to a PriceMetrix report, “outperformers,” or those advisors from PriceMetrix’s database who saw the most growth in either assets, revenues or both in 2011, are adding more productive relationships to their books and dropping less productive ones. ...
Dec 14, 2011
By Jerry Gleeson
Affluence and peace of mind no longer automatically go hand in hand, a new survey sponsored by Wells Fargo & Co. indicates, and the implications are sobering. In a survey of 800 Americans with investable assets of $100,000 and up, 23 percent said they are not confident they will have saved enough for retirement, compared to 75 percent who said they were confident. ...
Dec 14, 2011
By Matt Oechsli
The mantra for any type of social prospecting is strategic intent, and holiday schmoozing is tailored made for this. In simple terms, this means that you approach every social activity during the holidays with a game plan. You know who will be attending, whom you will know, whom you want to meet, and whom you’re targeting to romance into your pipeline....
Dec 13, 2011
By Charles Paikert
The bad news: despite mounting financial concerns, only one-half of small business owners use a wealth manager or financial advisor, according to a recently released survey by Securian Financial Group....
Dec 13, 2011
By Charles Paikert
Regional wealth management firms are accelerating their efforts to expand nationally next year.
Leawood, Kansas-based Mariner Wealth Advisors exemplified the trend among well-capitalized RIAs, bringing on 20-year Fidelity veteran Brian O’Regan last month to lead its ambitious national growth strategy. Other regional RIA powerhouses including Aspiriant, Presidio Financial Partners, U.S. Capitol Advisors and Tiedemann Wealth Management all have plans to add offices in new markets next year.
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Dec 12, 2011
By Susan Konig
A confluence of factors has shrunk the pool of potential recruits for wirehouse firms, and that means competition for the best advisors is fierce. ...
Dec 9, 2011
By Stan Luxenberg
During his long career, Vanguard Group founder John Bogle has often argued that most actively managed funds trail their benchmarks. In his book Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Bogle notes that 79 percent of active funds lagged the S&P 500 during the 20 years ending in 1998. Recent studies by Bogle and other researchers have reached similar conclusions. ...
Dec 9, 2011
By Diana Britton
If history is any indication of where the market moves in the months following a severe market correction, we can expect the S&P 500 to move up over the next three, six and 12 months, says Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ, Standard & Poor’s investment research division. ...
Dec 8, 2011
By Mark Miller
Lenders hope to convince financial planners who reverse loans can be a safe, flexible financial tool for seniors. Many planners are skeptical of reverse loans due to their high fees; the industry also has been dogged lately by headlines about litigation focused on foreclosure risks facing seniors, and market exits by several major lenders....
Dec 8, 2011
By Jennifer Duell Popovec
While holiday retail sales have an immediate and obvious impact on retailers, they also affect retail real estate investment trusts (REITs), the companies that own the regional malls and shopping centers where retailers operate. In fact, the amount of money Americans spend during the holidays can have both a short- and long-term impact on retail REITs....
