This past November, the SEC proposed an industry-supported rule to exempt broker/dealers from being subject to investment adviser rules when using nondiscretionary fee accounts. The exemption would apply as long as clients receive a disclosure...

Twenty years ago, on his second day as a broker, Brian Tremain came out of the closet. He was working for Merrill Lynch in Detroit.Years later, in 1988, Tremain moved to Prudential Securities, finding the firm "tremendously supportive," he says...

In March 1999, in response to requests from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC), the SEC published for comment a rule that would grant registration exemption to Canadian brokerages handling the accounts of their U.S.-based customers...

Your client doesn't need to be a CEO to have millions socked away in a stock option plan.The burgeoning number of stock option plans and the breadth of employees taking advantage of them are astonishing, says Tom Keating, marketing specialist at...

RR: Your theory is that we're going to have a booming economy from now until 2009 because baby boomers are in their peak productivity and spending years, right?Dent: The rising tide of spending and productivity increases demand and supply at the...

The industry's books bulged bigger than ever in 1999, according to the SIA. Pretax income was 16.3 billion dollars, compared with 9.8 billion dollars in 1998. The previous record pretax income was 12.2 billion dollars in 1997. Data is from 280...

Sean Allburn doesn't work in the big city--and that's just the way he likes it.About five years ago, Allburn, 32, a senior vice president at First Union Securities, made a conscious decision not to launch his brokerage career in a major...

The SEC wants to know if stock and option markets should honor an intermarket system of price and time priority.Under this system, a participant coming to market first with the best price receives priority execution. Time priority between stock...

Merrill Lynch's Valentine's Day appointment of E. Stanley O'Neal to head its retail brokerage division drew mostly yawns from Merrill reps. O'Neal was previously Merrill's CFO. John "Launny" Steffens, retail chief since 1985, was named to a new...

Merrill Lynch continues its push into e-commerce. After starting out with consumer products like meat from Omaha Steaks and books from Barnes & Noble, Merrill has expanded into business products and auctions.Merrill Lynch's consumer shopping site ...