Turns out that cross selling investments to American Express cardholders wasn't so after all. Saying there are few critical strategic links between the two businesses that create a compelling case for keeping them together, American Express CEO...
A.G. Edwards is not the first brokerage firm to encourage its brokers to continue their educations, but the firm has come up with a novel twist: Its continuing education classes now qualify for college credits. Offered through the A.G. Edwards...
The market may have been flat for much of 2004, but it didn't affect investors' enthusiasm for mutual funds. Total assets in the nation's mutual funds grew by $177.5 billion, or 2.2 percent, to $8.1 trillion in December, according an Investment...
According to a recent AARP survey of baby boomers, four out of five members of that generation plan on working after they retire from their jobs. Some will do so out of necessity to make up a shortfall in savings, for instance, or to patch...
Warren Bischoff was the new guy twice over when he took the branch manager job at RBC Dain Rauscher's Washington, D.C., complex in 2002. But he wasn't just new to the office; he was, in a sense, new to retail branch management, having spent the...
Robert Isbitts, president and chief investment officer of Weston, Fla.-based Emerald Asset Advisors, is re-examining his hedge fund investing strategy for his well-to-do clients. The problem? When he included the instruments in his wealthy clients...
The 2001 tax reform act built uncertainty into the estate-planning process. Under the act, estate tax rates decrease until 2009. The estate tax disappears for one year in 2010. In 2011, the rates and exemptions revert to 2001 levels. Adding to the...
When the Internet bubble collapsed, many investors knew where to place the blame on those brokers who had gulled them into believing in all those New Economy stocks. They sued. They took their business elsewhere. The public figured brokers were...
Training is everythingcauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. Mark Twain To this famous quote brokerage firms might add: Financial advisors are but Avon salesmen transformed by their wirehouse-sponsored tutoring. Such is the...
It's that most wonderful time of the year: Tax season. Wonderful for the IRS, perhaps. But for many others in the financial services industry, brokers and their clients included, tax time is often a frustrating, time-consuming and tedious exercise...
