Do your clients think you're boring? Try the joke book whose title is a joke in itself: 400 Greatest Jokes for Investment Advisors, Financial Planners, Financial Speakers, Insurance Agents, CPAs, Bankers & Stockbrokers. A sample entry: An actuary...

Merrill Lynch's long-awaited revamping of its desktop workstations will finally hit advisor desks at the end of this year. Meanwhile, the firm is actively recruiting again, though the number of jobs added in the hiring push is unlikely to equal...

If you aspire to serving affluent clients, providing financial plans that help them budget and prepare for quarterly estimated taxes is a must. Unlike ordinary taxes, which are withdrawn automatically from wages and pensions, estimated taxes rely...

The financial services industry is burdened by paperwork. But stock-jockey brokers should be thanking the Feds in at least one instance: for insider trading data. Insiders company officers, directors, relatives, anyone with access to key company...

For many advisors, the Series 65 is a ticking time bomb. Or, so says Donald B. Trone, founder of the Foundation for Fiduciary Studies in Pittsburgh. Trone, a long-time investment consultant, contends that no one is paying attention to a tricky...

Your Magic 8 ball has a better chance of predicting the outcome of the current estate tax enigma then you do. Couple that with the uncertainty of the stock market, and you have the making of some panicky clients. While you can't predict the future...

There are plenty of perks associated with climbing the corporate ladder more money, a corner office with a view, a bigger expense account, to name a few. But one benefit, company stock, can also be a burden. When executives have the majority of...

Borderline, feel like I'm going to lose my mind, Madonna sang in one of her earlier hits, and many brokers share her mental anguish perhaps none more acutely than those who deal with clients who live across that border. Maintaining a foreign...

The commotion surrounding the salacious e-mails of the equities-research scandal is starting to subside, but that doesn't mean it's safe to forget about them altogether. In fact, at least one important implication went largely unremarked upon and...

The rapid growth in separately managed accounts has given firms little time to organize their offerings in a coherent way. However, that is starting to change, according to Cerulli Associates, a Boston-based research company. Many firms recognize...