With 77 million baby boomers approaching retirement, advisors are surely looking for ways to win their business. One way? Financial gerontology. That's according to a recent survey by Rydex AdvisorBenchmarking, whose study specifically addresses...
Acting as Rocky Mountain Securities & Investments Inc.'s (RMSI) President, Director, Registered Financial and Operations Principal (FINOP), and Compliance Officer, Stephen J. Horning was a jack-of-all-trades unfortunately, he appeared not to be a...
What to do with the securities industry's Depression-era regulations that have investors confused over the difference between a registered investment advisor and a registered rep? After more than a year of collecting and analyzing data, the much...
Too Much Volume: The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) fined 19 broker/dealers in January a total of $2.8 million for substantially overstating their advertised trade volume to three private service providers. These service providers...
I was watching a TV documentary recently about a middle-aged man who was preparing to swim the English Channel. A reporter asked him why he had chosen to undertake this particular challenge especially since the man, a popular TV comedian, was not...
Depending upon who you listen to, we are either in a recession, or one is gathering on the horizon. (The Fed's Beige Book says no recession just slower growth.) Either way, it takes a brave investor to start taking stakes in high-yield bond funds...
An advisor running his own RIA firm recently wrote a how-to book, fulfilling a long-held dream to become a published author. But, he wonders, how much time can he devote to marketing the work without it seriously taking away from his client...
In His New Book, Donald Trump admonishes us to Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life (Collins, $26.95). Tired of thinking small and failing to kick ass, I ventured to the Javitz Convention Center on New York City's west side one weekend in...
Much has changed since Elliot Spitzer's efforts exploded the well-entrenched preferred list model for mutual fund distribution. Centralized home-office due-diligence teams are now in the driver's seat, with advisors selecting products for their...
Ignore the Next Big Thing? Who would do such a thing? The fee-based model, with its steady stream of revenue, is an attractive way of doing business for lots of advisors. And it has been billed as the newest rage for years now. But there are still...