Even though the value of your clients' homes isn't reflected in the assets you manage (and don't get any funny revenue-boosting ideas), these residences do represent a significant chunk of their net worths. And the sentimental value they attach to...

Registered Rep.: As newly appointed chair of the Financial Services Institute board (a trade group for independent b/ds), what's at the top of the agenda for 2009? Eric Schwartz: We have four key priorities for the year: First, we are already...

Last month's column discussed the importance of helping clients maximize the amount of money available to pay for higher education expenses specifically, by encouraging parents to apply for financial aid. But it's what you tell them to do with...

A musician and former college teacher recently turned independent advisor, wants to build his practice around two target markets artists and non-profits and his passion for socially responsible investing. He's just not quite sure how to pull it...

Benjamin Franklin once said: He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money. Sure, when you decide to switch firms, you may well want to pay attention to the dollar signs. But there are a lot...

With markets collapsing last fall, Nicholas Rowe, a financial advisor with Focus Capital, a registered investment advisor in Bedford, New Hampshire that clears trades through Schwab Institutional, began buying inverse exchange-traded funds (ETFs)...

For the past half-decade or more, financial advisors have been shifting from commissions to fees as they seek steadier revenue flows, pursue greater flexibility with client accounts and offer more planning services. And yet, for the industry...

If President Obama is truly a new kind of FDR arriving on the scene to the American economy from itself then he would be wise to read Amity Shlaes new-ish history of the Great Depression, The Forgotten Man (HarperCollins, 2007). In the book a...

The hot news at 2009’s largest gathering of estate-planning lawyers was not about the law. At the 2009 Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning’s opening session discussing recent developments, Dennis I. Belcher of Virgina’s...