Benjamin F. (Tad) Edwards hired Michael Petiford and Tim Reese from Wells Fargo to join his newly formed St. Louis-based broker/dealer. Edwards is the son of Benjamin F. Edwards III, the former chairman and chief executive of A.G. Edwards & Sons...
There has been a lot of buzz in the air about managed futures of late. It stands to reason, considering it was one of the few asset classes that performed well in 2008. Ok, very well: The average managed-futures program, as measured by the Barclay...
The last 12 months or so have provided plenty of angst in the financial services industry. In the calendar year 2008, the value of U.S. household assets plummeted by $11.2 trillion, or about 18 percent, the worst annual drop since the Fed began...
Interview George Tamer, Director of Strategic Relationships at TD AMERITRADE InstitutionalDid you know that 77 percent of advisors use referrals to generate new leads? Clearly, referrals are a key tactic in generating new leads, as the data...
According to London's Daily Telegraph demand for gold has fallen to a six-year low, and jewelry buyers and electronic producers might be to blame. Buyers of jewelry are the main drivers of the gold prices, accounting for more than 50 percent of...
When his career as a financial advisor ended in May, Norman Pappous took up a new line of work evaluating the investment performance of his former peers. Pappous transformed himself from a retail financial advisor into something like a classic...
Stewart Lee, a former branch office manager who heads Wellston, Okla.-based Lee Training a consulting and practice management firm which helps develop SIFMA's Branch Manager Development Program says that when he was a branch manager in the 1970s...
As the psychologist and performance coach to countless financial advisors, the pressures of being actively engaged in other people's lives can certainly take its toll on me. So at the end of every summer, I take my wife out to Montauk on Long...
A ten-year veteran of a large wirehouse firm says he's solicited regularly about switching firms. I pay attention to the deals. I'm curious to know what they're offering. I'm not really ready to move, but they keep trying, he says. Of course they...
The independent channel has long been advertised as The Next Big Thing. With its 95,000 or so advisors, the independents are the largest subset in the industry. But the great diaspora of wirehouse advisors going indie never materialized. It is...