A.G. Edwards' Scott Pinkerton is a team player. At 36, he's also a 2.85 million-dollar producer whose approach to the business has enabled him to operate efficiently in the office, create client loyalty and still have time left to spend with his...

The College for Financial Planning in Denver last year surveyed 365 financial planners about clients' financial knowledge. It turns out clients are least smart about estate planning.The planners rated clients on the following scale: 1=not...

About 3,000 financial professionals are testing the new online matchmaking service created by Boston-based Dalbar Financial and Microsoft. Called Advisor Finder, the service links users of Microsoft's MoneyCentral site (www.moneycentral.msn.com)...

Merrill Lynch is looking to compete with E*Trade--not necessarily for online investors, but for online shoppers.Randall Langdon, Merrill's director of digital business development in Princeton, N.J., says that the firm has "a very substantial e...

You know the old saying, "Mother knows best." In Jane Stein's case, it was true.When Stein was in college, her mother went through a divorce and was forced to learn about investing. After college, Stein moved to Houston and was "26 years old and...

Alex. Brown was forced to shut down its Annapolis, Md., branch in May when 19 of 23 brokers and staff left the prior month. All joined Boston-based Tucker Anthony, opening a branch in Annapolis and nearby Easton, Md. The brokers brought about 1...

If you've been waiting for evidence of any concrete synergies between Salomon Smith Barney and its adoptive parents at Citigroup, SSB co-head of retail Jay Mandelbaum says he has the documentation. Specifically, SSB's financial consultants have...

With four different broker/dealer subsidiaries, Dallas-based holding company Southwest Securities Group (SSG) offers a smorgasbord of financial services--everything from deep-discount online trading and clearing services to full-service brokerage...

When the SIA announced the findings of its survey on women and minorities in the securities industry this spring, the statistics were underwhelming."No surprises," says Kathleen Flanagan, co-chair of the SIA Diversity Committee, which created the...

Fall is when leaves turn colors and kids head back to school. It's also the time when you--having worked hard all year--often decide to push even harder. You realize that time is of the essence if you are going to meet your goals before the year...