In an effort to cut costs, some brokerage firms such as UBS and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney are restructuring their branch office organization and changing the rules about which managers must generate production. Consultants and recruiters are...
Edward Jones today announced the sale of its U.K. business operations to Towry Law, an independent wealth management firm based in the U.K., for an undisclosed sum. The operation was simply too expensive to operate, and only accounted for about 1...
Today Morgan Stanley Smith Barney announced the integration of Smith Barney’s Citi Family Office into its own ultra-high-net-worth division, which will now be called Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management. Unlike the old family office, the...
Fidelity announced a new and improved online trading platform today, significantly expanding its international and foreign currency investment capabilities for financial advisors, broker-dealers and retail investors. With U.S. long-term growth...
In its effort to raise capital and shed some of its non-core business units, Bank of America is selling First Republic Bank just two years after Merrill Lynch purchased the San Francisco-based private banking and wealth-management firm.
With all that’s occurred in the past 18 months, financial advisors have had a lot to ponder. Is Modern Portfolio Theory sufficient? Is buy and hold a sucker’s bet (more like “buy and hope”)? Is 60/40 stocks to bonds...
Morgan Stanley reported its first profit in a year on Wednesday, with third-quarter earnings of $757 million, or $0.38 per diluted share, beating analyst estimates for earnings per share of $0.30. The company’ results were boosted by higher...
Registered reps who have shunned life insurance for their clients due to complex, time-consuming underwriting can breathe a sigh of relief. Insurers now offer “simplified issue underwriting,” a typically automated and more efficient...
We’ve always been impressed by David Einhorn, the young manager of Greenlight Capital. Einhorn made our Ten To Watch list this past August for his prescient shorting and outspokenness about the shenanigans going on at Lehman. (His fund had...
