Practice Management

Thinking of starting a limited liability corporation? If so, you're not alone. About 80 percent to 90 percent of new practices choose that form of business structure, according to Philip Palaveev, senior consultant at Moss Adams, a Seattle...

When advisors decide to embark on a job search, they often overlook one very important firm to evaluate: their current one. It's an understandable oversight. Many advisors begin a search out of specific dislike for their current employer, so it...

Financial advisors know too well that optimism can be a negative force especially when it is applied to planning for a client's medical care. People from all walks of life tend to think positively when it comes to assessing their own chances for...

In the wake of the Wall Street scandals of the past few years, it was inevitable that government regulators would take a look at how the self-regulatory organizations (SROs), such as the NYSE and the NASD, were doing their jobs. If the SROs were...

What advisor couldn't build a respectable practice just serving the needs of doctors, lawyers and MBAs? Six- (and even seven-) figure incomes, smart, well connected and, most importantly, too busy to handle their own investments. Research suggests...

Big full-service brokerage houses like Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Smith Barney have long tried to have it both ways: hiring brokers as employees in an effort to own the client relationships, while treating brokers like independent...

The SEC has charged four brokers and a daytrader with cheating investors through a fraudulent scheme that used squawk boxes to eavesdrop on confidential order flow information, enabling them to trade ahead of large orders at more favorable prices...