Brokerage firms have lobbied for a new self-regulatory organization (SRO) model for years, saying the current system of two cops on the beat is redundant and, therefore, too time consuming and expensive. Now that SEC Chairman Christopher Cox has...
In an early November broadcast to the firm's U.S. financial advisors, Morgan Stanley retail head James Gorman announced the rollout of a new compensation program for 2007 one that will increase the firm's spending on compensation by millions of...
Most financial advisors consider themselves retirement experts. Sure, most of them know the minutiae of individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and 401(k)s and, indeed, most would be able to explain to a client why a 403(b) or a SEP-IRA might make...
File this under, It had to happen: the electronic collection plate. According to Donald Trump, writing in his Trump University blog, some Southern Protestant churches are installing ATMs in their lobbies. Trump predicts that if the ATM strategy is...
When did you know you wanted to become an investment advisor? When I was 17 years old, a friend introduced me to the stock market. We bought 10 shares of stock and made some money, and I was hooked. The stock was Armour Meat warrants. We bought it...
In September 2003, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced that hedge funds and other speculators had fleeced mutual fund shareholders. Employing the tactics known as market timing and late trading, the thieves had stolen huge amounts...
Eliot Spitzer may have less than a month left as New York State's attorney general, but the governor elect says there may be at least one more high-profile enforcement action against a major Wall Street firm before he leaves his post in January...
Shelf Space No No: The Hartford Financial Services Group agreed to pay $55 million to settle SEC charges that three subsidiaries of the firm failed to disclose their use of client mutual fund assets to pay brokerage firms to market The Hartford...
At the end of October, former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued Coventry First, one of the largest life-settlement firms in the U.S., for alleged bid-rigging and other types of fraud. Not exactly an auspicious development for the...
The rich are different, as they say. And that applies to how they talk and how they want to be talked to. We're all successful and travel in affluent circles. But I know that I'm not the only one letting affluent opportunities slip away for fear...
