By now, advisors have been bombarded with talk of “going independent.” It's a phrase that is regularly circulated in the hallways and offices of wirehouses and regional broker/dealers, and in the exhibit halls of major industry conferences. The...
The subprime debt market blowup has had very different effects on Wall Street firms Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. Goldman earnings shined in the third quarter, and Merrill earnings stunk. But according to news reports
ARE YOU CHARGING ENOUGH? That's hard to say. These days, discounting runs rampant in the financial-advisory industry: Firms allow giant haircuts on commissions, wrap-account fees and even fully waived mutual fund loads. Meanwhile, fees on assets...
Christiane Delessert, an advisor with National Financial Partners in Waltham, Mass., was thinking about retiring. But like many reps, she didn't have a succession plan in place to get there. With $420 million in assets under management, over 100...
Recruiting in the independent broker/dealer business has reached a fever pitch. The signs are everywhere. Just take Raymond James, where the number of advisors recruited so far this year is already about 80 percent ahead of where it was last year...
It's All In The Name: The SEC recently charged Robert Ray White Samples, principal of Pot O' Gold Financial Services in Denver, Colo., with misappropriating more than $1 million from 31 investors through two fraudulent investment schemes. The...
Randall W. Epright has been appointed executive vice president and chief operating officer of AIG Advisor Group, and senior vice president of Operations and Systems for AIG SunAmerica Asset Management Corp. LPL Financial Services has named Derek...
Here's one way to evaluate equity research: Measure the impact it has on stock prices. Bespoke Investment Group, a financial research firm, did just that, and apparently, Robert W. Baird takes top honors. Out of 16 firms, Baird's upgrades impacted...
For decades, most financial advisors have clung to a central belief about asset allocation: The older you are, the more fixed income you should hold. Retirees should gradually shift away from equities, and into bonds, the thinking goes. That way...
