Madhura Karnik

Advisor Partners announced Tuesday it hired Kris McCabe as the national director of sales and marketing.

If the government decreases social security and other benefits as a way to avoid the cliff, middle class Americans could be hit the hardest.

The New York City based wealth advisory firm appointed Lyle LaMothe as Non-Executive Chairman of the board and Greg Franks as a managing partner and president. Chris Lappas joined the firm as the chief operating officer.

Snowden Capital Advisors has added two advisor teams, the DiCiaccio Group and the LaMothe-Gonzalez Group.

Twenty-five percent of the 33 million U.S. pre-retirees, surveyed by LIMRA, said they felt “very prepared” for retirement, down from 30% of those surveyed in 2010.

Securities and advisory firm, Multi-Financial Securities Corporation, announced today the signing of two new advisors, Dave Strunc and Nicholas Russell, founders of Sunrise Wealth Advisors, an Orlando, FL, based advisory firm.

The RIA channel is growing rapidly as firms with more than $1 billion in assets continues to drive growth, according to a report from Cerulli & Associates.

The Schwab IMPACT 2012 Conference opened Tuesday in Chicago. The annual gathering of independent investment advisors, now in its 21st year, will go on through Friday bringing together the industry’s best and brightest advisors.

The Women Advisors Forum, an online social network for female financial advisors, ushered in its 1000th member when Jennifer Riek joined the community Monday.

High-net-worth individuals nationally are less tolerant about an adverse economy compared to their global counterparts, according to a research report by Barclays Wealth.

Almost one-third of adults who would like to retire do not know if they could and further do not believe they would ever be able to retire, with women more unsure than men.

Summit Brokerage Services expanded its team of advisors adding seven advisors over the last five months, the Florida-based company announced Tuesday.

Hawaii is the best state for retirees according to the 2012 MoneyRates.com analysis of the Best and Worst Stated for Retirement in the U.S.

Mass affluent and millionaire investors remain pessimistic about the near-term economic outlook, according to a survey by Phoenix Marketing International, but the results were a tad better than compared to the rest of this year.

HighTower Advisors hired David Nelson as a private wealth advisor at its Washington, D.C., based Pagnato-Karp Group.

Commonwealth Financial Network launched "RetireReady," a customizable participant education program for independent advisors. The program will help advisors add value to retirement planning advising for sponsor clients.

The Salentica Advisor Desk with the Schwab OpenView Gateway is a platform for independent investment advisors to access real-time information on their clients' financial holdings through the Salentica CRM solution.

Business owners below the age of 45 are more bullish on their growth prospects compared to their elder counterparts, according to the Western Union Small Business Barometer.

Investor confidence in North America continued to weaken in September, according to State Street's Investor Confidence Index. The index fell by 3.2 points in September to 81.1 from a month earlier.

Schwab has lowered fees on all of its fifteen proprietary exchange-traded funds, Marie Chandoha, president, Charles Schwab Investment Management., said during a monthly media briefing Friday.