New York Stock Exchange Regulation handed down a $900,000 fine to A.G. Edwards today, marking the regulator’s first fine for abuses in fee-based accounts. The firm was also charged with failure to supervise staff, including one particularly...

The U.S. Senate passed the Pension Protection Act, which lawmakers hope will spur businesses to improve existing employer-sponsored retirement plans, on Thursday. There is also a special gift to financial advisors in the bill, which passed the...

Brokerage firms have long managed assets in employer-sponsored retirement accounts, but offering specific investment advice to individual plan participants has always been off-limits to reps. That could change very soon. According to the rules of...

Today, the SEC announced that it would officially conduct a study to see if allowing the so-called “Merrill exemption” did in fact confuse retail investors or not. So, the exemption is again being investigated.

A look at some of the choicer schemes that have blackened the market

There is a feeling among employees of small broker/dealers that regulators have it out for them. Some small b/ds (defined as fewer than 100 reps) won't go so far as to say regulators want to drive them out of business on purpose, but agree that...

Just how good are branch office managers and OSJs at supervising their FAs? While investor complaints received by the NASD have been climbing since 2002, "failure to supervise" arbitration cases have been falling steadily.

As any branch manager or OSJ will tell you, being the "head rainmaker" isn't what it used to be, what with the ever-increasing regulatory demands devouring ever more quantities of time and energy. If that weren't enough, many BOMs face yet another...

Today, the regional director is a marked man; it's not necessarily a role poised for extinction, mind you, but their ranks will be seriously culled. At least that's what some analysts and branch managers think (and some hope) is going to happen.

Despite ever-increasing compliance issues, recruiting remains the most important focus of any branch manager's job