Wealth Management Archives
Wealth Management
What The Wealthy Think Of Your Firm
May 7, 2008 12:02 PM, By John Churchill
Regardless of where you work, or what kind of practice you have, the last nine or 10 months have probably been tough on you and your clients. Of course, some firms have fared better than others, so what better time than now to hear what clients think of your brand?...
Equal-Weighted Indexing Wins Over the Long Haul
Apr 30, 2008 2:40 PM, By Kristen French
Equal and fundamental indices have outperformed market-cap weighted indices by a meaningful margin over the past 18 years, according to a recent white paper released by Standard & Poor's. But cap-weighted indices tend to outperform during bull markets, or when mega-cap growth stocks are doing best, the research showed. ...
Down Market Sparks Federal Suits
Apr 23, 2008 3:12 PM, By Halah Touryalai
The market is volatile, to say the least, and investors and shareholders are on edge. And why shouldn't they be? Between the failure of the auction-rate securities market, sub-prime woes and hedge fund and investment bank implosions, the market sometimes looks a bit like a winter graveyard. Many investors are looking for someone to blame, and seeking justice in the form of securities class-action lawsuits. ...
It's Okay To Outsource
Apr 16, 2008 12:42 PM, By Christina Mucciolo
Johnne Syverson, a CFP and co-founder of RIA firm Syverson Strege & Company, in West Des Moines, Iowa, has been outsourcing money-manager selection and portfolio construction to SEI since 1995. The firm, which manages $300 million in assets, has three CFAs and eight CFPs on staff. Syverson says it's not that they don't know how to pick stocks or funds. But when they heard SEI was getting into the RIA-outsourcing business, they decided they would rather use more of their time doing comprehensive financial planning for clients—and less time picking funds. ...
Investors Getting Smarter?
Apr 9, 2008 12:06 PM, By John Churchill
In February, stock fund investors did a curious thing. Instead of running for the exits as the S&P 500 continued falling, they pumped large sums of new money into U.S. and international stock funds. Are investors getting smarter, buying when the news is bad and markets are falling, versus buying after big market run ups only to sell, in a panic, when the market falls?...
RIA M&A (Temporarily) Hits The Skids in '08
Apr 2, 2008 2:05 PM, By Kristen French
Mergers and acquisitions activity in the registered investment advisory (RIA) business had been on a three-year run, with new records in dollar volume set each year. But, in the first quarter of this year, M&As slowed dramatically, another casualty of the credit crunch. A total of 10 RIA mergers and acquisitions were completed through March 20, 2008, with total assets under management of about $14 billion. By comparison, in March of last year, twice as many deals had been made; 80 deals were done in all of 2007, and $101 billion in assets acquired, according to data from Schwab Institutional. ...
THE FAILURE CHAIN
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, BY JOHN CHURCHILL
Consider the Curious and Rather Grotesque Case of Gary J. Gross, a financial advisor from (where else?) Boca Raton, Fla. Gross' U4 is close to 100 pages...
GOOD TIMES, BAD TIMES
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By John Churchill
If you work for one of the major wirehouses, you're in pain. If you're a commission-based rep, business is slow. And if you are a fee-based rep, your...
THE BEAR FACTS
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, David A. Geracioti
Bear markets are shrinking. According to Leuthold Weeden Institutional Research, in a typical post-WWII bear market, the S&P 500 declined 30 percent over...
Mini Mess
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Christina Mucciolo
Fidelity Investments is paying big bucks ($3.75 million) in fines for, among other things, playing with little people. Thirteen Fido employees accepted...
COMINGS & GOINGS
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Halah Touryalai
Wilkes Thomas Martin III joined Morgan Keegan & Co., Inc. as a financial advisor and senior vice president in the firm's Greenville office. Prior to joining...
Beating The Bear
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, 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 12:00 PM, 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 12:00 PM, 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...
CRANKY CLIENTS
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, BY ANNE FIELD
It goes with the territory: During high-anxiety times like these, when market volatility makes even the strongest stomachs churn, you can expect to deal...
Use It Or Lose It: Tax Planning For 2009
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Mollie Neal
Ask a financial expert about the biggest pitfalls that small businesses encounter at tax time, and they'll probably point to a lack of planning. Last...
RIAs Not Feeling Wall Street’s Heat. At Least, Not Yet.
Mar 26, 2008 1:22 PM, By Halah Touryalai
News on Wall Street has been pretty grim lately. Decades-old financial firms have imploded, banks are seeking capital infusions and sub-prime woes are likely to keep rippling across the industry. All of that turmoil hurts advisors at Wall Street brokerages: Brokerage stocks have rebounded recently, but are still dramatically lower versus last year, so advisors who own stock in their employers (as so many do) may have experienced big dents in their net worth. They may also have to contend with cranky clients who are worried about their portfolios, their assets, and, generally speaking, the quality of Wall Street management. ...
Breeding Loyalty In Bad Times
Mar 19, 2008 12:07 PM
Bear Stearns near-collapse and sellout to J.P. Morgan was just one more act in the ugly market drama unfolding on Wall Street: Big brand-name firms, thought to be failsafe, are reeling from the sub-prime crisis and its fallout. The economy and the markets are on the skids. Financial advisors are left to mollify their clients’ anxieties about the safety of their assets—and their retirements—however they can. There’s no question that they’re skittish: Investor confidence, as measured by the State Street Global Markets Index of Investors Confidence, sat at 83.5 in March. Granted, that is a better reading than it got back in December, when it bottomed out at 65.3. But it’s still low compared to an average last year of about 97. ...
With Share Price Sagging, Citigroup Offers New Options To Advisors. Will Other Firms Follow?
Mar 12, 2008 12:39 PM, By John Churchill
It isn’t pretty right now for advisors. There’s the barrage of bad press over write-downs, surprise failures of “conservative” investments (auction rates, anyone?), regulatory investigations and lawsuits. Not surprisingly, the stock market looks like a liar’s polygraph line—with a decided downward slope bias. But perhaps, worst of all, financial-services stocks are in the toilet. Not only are most client-account values down—which means advisory fees are down—if you’re at a publicly-traded brokerage firm, your net worth has probably been sliced in half in about a year’s time. As brokerage stocks tank—Wall Street banks have all seen their stock prices fall 40 percent or more in the last six months—they’re clobbering the options in advisors’ retirement accounts. ...
House, Industry Wrangle Over ETN, Derivatives Tax Treatment
Mar 5, 2008 4:58 PM, By Kristen French
Derivatives are certainly having their day in the sun. Congress is considering new tax treatment for certain derivatives, including prepaid derivative contracts and exchange-traded notes (ETNs). The House Ways & Means Committee held a hearing today on the matter. It’s part of an ongoing debate: The mutual-fund industry has complained that derivatives—especially ETNs, which are growing in popularity with retail clients—are very similar to mutual funds, and yet get better tax treatment. ETN makers and brokerages take a different view. After all, a change in ETN tax treatment might doom the vehicle to niche status forever. ...
THE FEVER FOR STRUCTURED PRODUCTS
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, BY BRIAN WARGO
Long a Favorite of Investors in Europe, structured products are rapidly gaining popularity in the United States. Last year, $114 billion in structured...
RBC's Buying Spree
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Halah Touryalai
RBC Dain Rauscher continued its recent streak of acquisitions in February, announcing plans to acquire Ferris, Baker, Watts (FWB), a full-service broker/dealer...
THE LENDING SQUEEZE
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Kristen French
Did you think financial advisors would be immune to the sub-prime crisis? Think again. Sure, you've heard that credit markets are tight. Capital is obviously...
DON'T FEAR RECESSION
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, David A. Geracioti
Just about everybody and their brother has an opinion about the potential for a recession. Are we headed for one? Are we in one right now? Former Federal...
Across the Pond
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Halah Touryalai
Deal making in the wealth-management space has been rampant lately, and some holding companies and individual RIAs are beginning to see opportunities...
