There was a time, not too long ago, when for many a tenured financial advisor, graduating to a branch-manager position was the ultimate aspiration. It was seen as an honor, a natural progression in a successful career. After all, branch office...
Nationwide Communications' owner and president Jim Usher knew his firm's finances were in a tangle. But like most small-business owners, he didn't have the wherewithal to sort them out. And he surely didn't have $200,000 to $300,000 the average...
If any industry could use a dose of optimism right now, it's financial services. And for the men and women who toil every day on behalf of their clients, this year's 28th annual Outstanding Advisor Award winners could be exactly what advisors need...
Given a choice, most of your clients would rather pay for their kids' college education from accumulated savings or an overabundance of current income (if not a full ride based on the child's expertise at Guitar Hero). But when those sources of...
The proposed FINRA rule would change current practice-which renders arbitrations a virtual black box in which the arbitrators need not explain how they decide a case.
John Ritter is an unusual case, but he may also be a harbinger of things to come. A fee-only advisor with Ritter Daniher Financial Advisory, an RIA in Cincinnati, Ritter has over $2 million of client assets in annuities, and says he plans to put...
During the heyday of paper assets, stockbrokers regularly lorded over their commodity-dealing brethren. It wasn't personal, mind you, just the nature of the business. Stock jockeys were making commissions hand over fist, leaving commodities...
AIG SunAmerica Retirement Markets, Inc., named Greg Blackwell western division sales manager for the Polaris Financial Services Division. Fidelity's National Financial unit named Mark Healy executive vice president of the group's newly established...
In September 2006, an SEC official gave a remarkably prescient speech to an obscure organization (well, obscure to me, anyway). Martha Mahan Haines, chief of the SEC's Office of Municipal Securities, presented a short speech to about 400 women...
Despite current laws that reduce the estate-tax bite, survivorship life insurance is making a comeback as an estate-planning tool among some advisors. With Democrats in control of Congress, and a good chance that a Democrat will take the White...
