Making that first million is always the hardest, but for millionaire retirees, it's not that big a deal, according to a new Ameriprise Financial survey. The study, of 432 millionaire retirees, found that 40 percent felt that passing seven figures in net worth was "not that big a deal." Still, two-thirds said that crossing the million-dollar threshold made them feel more confident about their financial situation. Perhaps they're not as impressed with themselves because they don't consider a million dollars to be wealthy. Seventy percent didn't consider themselves wealthy. Instead, nearly half said a net worth of $5 million would be. "One million is historically a target that people have in mind, but sometimes when people get to that target, they don't feel like they have accomplished as much," Kevin Meehan, a certified financial planner in Illinois, told CNBC.
Raymond James, Baird in Hot Water Over Wrap Fee Procedures
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Raymond James & Associates and Robert W. Baird with compliance failures within their wrap fee programs. Raymond James paid $600,000 to settle the charges, and Baird agreed to pay $250,000. The SEC claims the firms lacked policies and procedures for determining the commissions clients were paying when sub-advisors “traded away” with a broker/dealer outside the wrap accounts. “Without this information, the firms’ financial advisors were unable to provide the magnitude of these costs to clients and did not consider these commissions when determining whether the sub-advisors or the wrap fee programs were suitable for clients, leaving certain clients unaware they were paying additional costs beyond the single wrap fee they paid for bundled investment services,” the regulator said.
TCA Adds Fractional Share Technology
Trust Company of America, a technology provider for RIAs, announced Wednesday that it would start offering fractional share technology to its account management platform. The new feature allows advisors and their clients to own pieces of stocks or ETFs within a portfolio to gain diversification without the same cost or risk exposure of owning the whole stock. So if a client wants to own a high-profile stock but can’t afford it, advisors can use the technology to add to their portfolio at an expense they can afford. Alternatively, TCA said the technology could help advisors comply with fiduciary rules by reducing the risk exposed to whole stocks dropping in value. "Our goal is to put our advisors in the business of saying 'yes,'" said James Capps, chief technology officer of TCA. "Fractional share technology will equip advisors to work efficiently on more accounts, regardless of their size.”
