Q: Like many brokers, I switched firms three years ago, joining a wirehouse offering a seven-year forgivable loan as upfront payment. Since hiring on at the new firm, my production has nosedived. I may be fired or, because I'm so frustrated, leave...
Pittsburgh-based PNC Investments, the brokerage arm of PNC Bank, is deep into an aggressive hiring campaign, aiming to add 100 financial consultants by year's end an effort it hopes to duplicate in 2005. The hiring jag is part of a push to attract...
No one likes paying taxes, but clients get extra steamed when they are blindsided by a particularly hefty IRS bill. Unfortunately, such tax surprises could become increasingly common for shareholders of municipal bond funds. The source of the...
Responding to a question about the most significant changes seen in his 50-year career: There are so many dishonest people in the businessI thought most of the fellows in our business were honest.-Keith Gilmore, broker with Dain Bosworth, October...
UBS hired away one of Merrill Lynch's largest producers in Arizona, Kenneth Fruehauf. Based in Scottsdale, Fruehauf had worked for Merrill since December 1992 and had brought his assets under management up to $255 million, with a $2.8 million...
For the first time in a year-and-a-half, quarter-over-quarter revenue at bank-owned broker/dealers dropped, by 18 percent, according to a Bank Insurance & Securities Association's (BISA) report on the second quarter of 2004. True, the first...
Creative thinking can mean the difference between average and superior performance in a number of industries, and the brokerage biz certainly is one of them. Powerhouse producers, of course, tend to be good salesmen and insightful financial...
When famed American novelist John Updike let his philandering anti-hero Rabbit Angstrom finally improve his life in Rabbit is Rich, he had Rabbit inherit a Toyota dealership. Before long the Angstroms did well enough to purchase not one, but two...
Imagine a business designed specifically to help increase the size of client accounts but one whose best success stories end in a customer outgrowing the firm and departing for a rival. This, more or less, was the conundrum facing Charles Schwab &...
To advisors who would ask, Do I need a personal coach? I respond, Michael Jordan had one, and Tiger Woods employs one. Even the best financial advisor can benefit from a coaching relationship, provided the relationship is approached with an open...
