Pressure from discounters could be keeping the lid on commission hikes at full-service firms, and pushing some brokers to discount more.According to a Securities Industry Association report, firms' commission rates held steady in 1998 (see chart...
Brokers have been waiting a long time to use some of the basic Internet tools most businesspeople employ every day. The access issue has troubled the industry for the past several years, as firm management struggles with how to control the...
Need a vacation but don't know how to get up and go without packing guilt along with your sunscreen? Don't worry, it's not as difficult as you think. First, recognize the value of time spent away from the office, then develop a plan to make it...
Salomon Smith Barney is actively recruiting mature trainees. Scottie King, the firm's director of resource development, says that the average SSB rookie is now 36 years old as opposed to the average age of 26 a decade ago. "In each training class...
Merrill Lynch is one of the most progressive companies in the United States when it comes to telecommuting. With a state-of-the-art "simulation lab" to give employees a two-week pseudo-telecommuting experience before they make the actual work-at...
Kevin Murphy, U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, Casper, Wyo.While it typically takes new reps a few years to get their businesses off the ground, Kevin Murphy experienced success from day one. "Right off the bat, everything started to work well," says...
Harold Finley, Howe Barnes Investments, ChicagoPersistence pays off. A few weeks before celebrating his 83rd birthday in February, Harold Finley landed four new accounts he had pursued patiently for years, each bringing assets in the seven-figure...
David Wamsley, Salomon Smith Barney, IndianapolisDavid Wamsley started trading stocks in high school--with his grandparents' encouragement and some token money. By the time he got to Purdue University, Wamsley had advanced to oil well investment...
"Midlife crisis is too strong a term, but at 42, I realized I still had half my working life ahead of me," says Wade Sanders, a financial consultant with IJL Wachovia in North Wilkesboro, N.C. "I believe you need to do what you want to do."Yet at...
In 1986 at the age of 41, Sally Miller was a 19-year veteran elementary schoolteacher ready for a change. Her husband, who had died two years earlier, had been a teacher, too. "It wasn't the money as much as the difficulty in continuing the career...
