Recruiters say reps that are tiring of the pressure to convert their clients to fee-based arrangements have an alternative in the independent broker/dealer world. Many of our recent placements with regionals have been experienced brokers who want...

The term 12-step process is all but synonymous with substance-abuse recovery, but it's also easily applied to other undesirable behavior: poor salesmanship. Our interviews with successful high-net-worth advisors has helped us to create a process...

Executors face a painful dilemma in deciding when to satisfy a pecuniary bequest. If they make distributions too quickly, creditors may hold them liable for disposing of funds needed to pay debts. If they make distributions too slowly...

Advisors of a certain age might remember an old Heineken beer ad campaign based around this phrase: Just being the best is enough. The idea, of course, being that the beer was so good it sold itself. A surprising number of advisors subscribe to a...

Smith Barney is facing a new round of sex-discrimination suits. A quartet of financial consultants from California has filed a national class-action lawsuit against the firm in a San Francisco federal court. The suit alleges systemic sexual...

Q: Many firms use third-party investment research to cover companies their own analysts don't or to supply a second opinion. As part of these arrangements, the firms often enter into contractual agreements with unregistered third parties. The...

When the SEC ruled in April to re-propose the so-called Merrill Exemption, permitting Series 7 licensees to continue to call themselves financial advisors, thousands of reps and their firms heaved a sigh of relief. Technically, a Series 7 license...

If legal filings are a leading indicator of the amount of trouble a particular industry is in, the securities industry can start to breathe a bit easier According to the NASD, the number of new case filings dropped by 8 percent, to 8,201, in 2004...