Each December, consumer magazines and newspapers swell with year-end tax planning tips. Unfortunately, such advice comes too late in the year for most people to act effectively. What's worse, the last-minute sell-off it often inspires can wreak...

If Neil Hennessy were a clothing retailer, he'd be Brooks Brothers one of those companies whose styles don't change much, even as the fashion world decides it wants hip huggers one year and platform shoes the next. Hennessy, of course, is not a...

Well before the year ended, 2002 was poised to set arbitration records but not the kind of records many would be proud of. For the year, the number of NASD arbitration claims reached 7,704, the greatest number in history, up from 6,915 in 2001. In...

Wachovia Securities is raising the bar on production-related bonuses. Translation for brokers: you've got to produce more to retain your current rate of pay. Previously, brokers generating between $17,000 and $18,999 per month received a standard...

To say growth stock managers and their investors have it rough these days is an understatement worthy of the folks at Enron. Consider that the Nasdaq, a proxy for growth stocks, lost about 77 percent of its value from peak to trough. We could...

It's nearly impossible to ignore the rallying call for managed accounts. Ninety percent of advisors netting $300,000 or more annually collect some fee revenue, and more than half of them garner at least 25 percent from fees, according to my 2000...

Any fisherman will tell you that electronics have changed his sport by replacing guesswork with intelligence. Likewise, online resources have changed the game of landing high-net-worth clients. Once upon a time, it took weeks to get the kind of...

The major Wall Street firms are finally getting prudent with their approach. Some words from firms in annual addresses in 2003: Remember, all that glitters is not gold. Financial planning is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Be the master...

Rick Baugh, a pilot-turned-Merrill-broker, on market volatility: Of late, we've had too many days when the Dow was up 15 to 20 points, and if you get carried away with that kind of action, you can make some disastrous mistakes. RR, Feb. 1983