Pick up a phone, call 40 people and you might think you've done a good day's prospecting. Now imagine reaching 1,000 times that number or more in just an hour or two. Ralph Russell, an independent financial advisor in Chicago, reaches 100,000 to...

The Securities Industry Association has weighed in negatively on the NASD's proposed changes to the handling of Central Registration Depository (CRD) complaints. The SIA's main point of contention is that, under the proposal, minor complaints...

If your game is separately managed accounts, and you have been frustrated by the complexity of managing client assets across several managers, you might be happy to know that multi-manager products are gaining wide acceptance by customers. Using a...

Burton Malkiel, professor of financial economics at Princeton University, is the intellectual midwife of the indexing phenomenon. In his classic A Random Walk Down Wall Street, first published in 1973 (the eighth edition was published last month)...

In this market, brokers are being laid off or are voluntarily opting out, because it's so hard to make their numbers. Yet, some brokers are still stalked like first-round NBA draft picks. Just as coaches try to create championship teams by...

With deeply uncertain economic realities at home, investors are searching for an alternative market, preferably in an industrialized country with low correlation to the U.S. markets. Australia might just do the trick. For most American investors...

The bear market has forced all brokerages to do some strategic rethinking. At Morgan Stanley, the exercise forced management to question a fundamental assumption of the merger of the giant investment bank with retail brokerage powerhouse Dean...

A newlywed couple makes an appointment to discuss opening an account with you. At the meeting, they place orders for about $40,000 in large-cap stocks and deposit an envelope full of cashiers checks and money orders. In response to your mandatory...

Last month's column detailed why financial advisors need to at least consider adding managed accounts to their practices. It also gave some insight into investor types who would benefit most from managed accounts. Now we need to discuss how an...

Even in a bear market, brokerage firms try to hire good producers. Mostly, firms are still downsizing their broker ranks, via attrition or outright dismissals. But one firm is aggressively hiring reps: UBS PaineWebber. In the last quarter of 2002...