The mutual fund scandals have put advisors in a tough position: Recommending a fund that ends up in the headlines can deal a serious blow to an advisor's reputation and can even mean lost clients. One way to be safe is to stick with companies that...
At most publicly traded national broker/dealers, about 35 percent of employees are called financial advisors, according to Keefe Bruyette & Woods. Which means A.G. Edwards is positively overflowing with reps 45 percent of all workers at the 15,400...
On his personal weblog, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban announced plans to start a hedge fund based in sports gambling. Returns would be based on how fund managers fare against Vegas spreads.
Think U.S. markets are reasonably valued? Think again. Earnings are recovering, so the bear market must be on the run, right? Think again. Given the president's mandate, Social Security may be privatized and the era of tax cuts will surely...
It's a rare event indeed when an IRS ruling is cause for celebration, but such was the case in April when the tax-meisters made some alternative deferred-compensation funding investments more tax friendly. Specifically, the IRS ruled that an...
When Edward Jones was accused last year of steering clients to certain mutual fund families without disclosing that the firm received multimillion-dollar payments from those funds, it denied the charges.
Tom Matthews, president of Smith Barney’s global private client group, is retiring from Smith Barney, firm officials announced today. Matthews, who had been with the firm for nearly three decades, started as a financial consultant and...
The NASD did its part for the U.S. troops today, fining Texas broker/dealer First Command $12 million for misleading its mostly military clientele about the costs of the 50 percent upfront sales charge attached to its systematic investment plan.
Gaining access to high-net-worth clients is priority No. 1 for many brokerage firms these days, but it takes years of hard work to grow an organization of qualified wealth managers. So firms—such as Wachovia (Tanager), Schwab (U.S. Trust)...
