News

Bank of America intends to sign the so-called “broker protocol,” an agreement signed by most of the brokerage firms and RIAs stipulating what client information is acceptable for a departing financial advisor to take without getting...

The top 50 financial advisors at Merrill Lynch aren’t happy with the wording of their retention package, and they’ve taken the first step towards getting changes made by collectively hiring a lawyer.

In September and October, Houston-based financial advisor Mike Robertson was getting 60 calls a day from panicked clients. On Long Island, New York, about 5 percent of Mark Snyder's clients hit the phones. They're saying, What's happening? says...

Faced with gyrating markets, many retirees worry about exhausting their savings. To calm nerves, some clients may insist on reducing their spending. But if withdrawal plans have been carefully designed, advisors have little reason to make major...

Where are we now? Good question. It's a global rout, with worldwide governments pumping $3 trillion of rescue capital into the financial system. Will it work? We wanted to quantify the situation with a view to divining how much remaining exposure...

This is the time of year when you should not only be considering your clients' charitable intentions, but also what you may be able to fork over to your favorite organization. Then again, if your recent paychecks are closely correlating with the...

All eyes are on the stock market's gyrations and its impact on retirement plans. Bear markets are a vexing problem for retirees, of course, but that's not the real issue. The coming retirement crisis is worse than a simple bear market cycle. Just...

If Bank of America signs the broker protocol, it will be pretty much business as usual for Merrill advisors, say securities lawyers. But advisors may not know whether BofA will sign it before they have to sign their own retention agreements—...

Merrill Lynch financial advisors put off by non-compete language in the retention package they received last week—and must now decide whether to sign—are getting assurances from Merrill that it’s not as bad as they think.

Stowell & Friedman, a Chicago-based law firm, must not want Merrill Lynch to forget about an unresolved discrimination suit it filed against the firm three years ago.