About the current credit market turmoil, Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in early September, The behavior in what we are observing in the last seven weeks is identical in many respects to what we saw in 1998, what we saw in the...

Today's intensely competitive recruiting environment demands that branch managers spend a lot of time and energy wooing prospective hires. But too many managers just aren't keeping up. Take the following tale of two wirehouse managers, both with...

Over the past five years, institutional investors have taken quite a shine to a type of fund that nobody quite knows what to call. At last count, pensions and endowments had committed some $30 billion to these so-called short extension, or...

Financial stocks have understandably led the market down during the recent credit-related correction. But the group has also recently led in another area: insider buying. In July and August, executives and directors in this much-beleaguered sector...

Millions of investors have piled into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over the past decade. Assets in the funds have grown from $65 billion in 2000 to $488 billion today, according to the Investment Company Institute, the mutual fund trade group...

Joni Elliot decided that her career came first When vacationing with her boss Scott Magnesen's wife 12 years ago in Desert Springs, Calif., she met her husband-to-be. After a year of long-distance dating, she told him their marriage would be...

IT'S TOO EASY when focusing on what's happening today and tomorrow to overlook what may happen years from now. After all, especially in our business, who can predict tomorrow? But you don't need a crystal ball to predict that more of your clients...

Think for a moment about your affluent clients and their centers-of-influence. As you scroll through these images in the theater of your mind, try to assess your marketplace equity. If is your initial response to this term, you are not alone. But...

Last year, Robert Isbitts, who runs Weston, Fla.-based RIA Emerald Asset Advisors, decided he had to take drastic action. Legal and regulatory compliance issues were spreading his employees thin. Everyone at the firm was responsible for his or her...

Q: Where do you draw the line between what is best for your clients' money, and what is best for your clients in the long run? My manager gets upset with me sometimes when I steer a client away from a 529 that I can manage, to the state 529 plan...