In the wake of the Terry Schiavo case and the death of Pope John Paul II many clients are focusing on end-of-life issues, particularly those surrounding life support and the final wishes of an incapacitated patient. Financial concerns, of course...
Say you meet up with a married couple in their mid 60s with three adult children and a net worth of $3 million $1.5 million in his IRA, $500,000 in their home and $1 million in nonretirement mutual funds. Since the husband is likely to die first...
Advisors of a certain age might remember an old Heineken beer ad campaign based around this phrase: Just being the best is enough. The idea, of course, being that the beer was so good it sold itself. A surprising number of advisors subscribe to a...
When Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter got married back in 1997, the idea was to create a Wall Street powerhouse: a white shoe investment bank (Morgan Stanley) with a nationwide, albeit work-a-day, distribution network (Dean Witter). That, at least...
Not-So-Hot IPO: The NASD fined San Francisco-based Thomas Weisel Partners $1.75 million for levying what the NASD deemed exorbitant commission charges on IPO shares. The firm sometimes charged commissions of more than $1 per share for attractive...
The mutual fund fees known as 12b-1s have morphed into something few envisioned when the SEC created them 25 years ago. With regulators now poised to address that transformation, many reps are sweating about the future of a reliable income stream...
Smith Barney is facing a new round of sex-discrimination suits. A quartet of financial consultants from California has filed a national class-action lawsuit against the firm in a San Francisco federal court. The suit alleges systemic sexual...
In 1984, Julian Mayo was a trainee at Schroders, an investment bank, when he was sent to investigate a little-known automaker in a town called Ulsan on the southeast coast of Korea. The Asian nation was still under dictatorship, which meant army...
Q: Many firms use third-party investment research to cover companies their own analysts don't or to supply a second opinion. As part of these arrangements, the firms often enter into contractual agreements with unregistered third parties. The...