Ann Marsh

Advisors have some more competition brewing in the still-nascent online planning world.

Advisors in all channels saw fee income increase as a percentage of their compensation over the past year, according to a new study.

Among the very wealthy, family foundations long have been a common vehicle for charitable giving. However, more families than ever are skipping foundations altogether in favor of simpler and cheaper donor-advised funds.

It’s a tricky act, being both big and personal. But organizers of LPL’s 23rd annual conference are aiming to strike this balance, according to one of its organizers.

Cambridge Investment Research founder Eric Schwartz has put together a highly structured several-year plan aimed at sharing company ownership and allowing it to remain independent. Here are the main pillars of the plan.

Founder Eric Schwartz is making big plans to preserve the firm’s independence and viability for the long term -- by giving away control now.

In the most recent expansion of its planning services, Raleigh, N.C.-based Capital Investment is adding five new financial advisors.

Northstar Wealth Partners, the largest LPL Financial-affiliated wealth management firm in Connecticut, has nearly doubled its assets under management to just under $2 billion -- by recruiting two advisors formerly with Essex Financial Services in Essex, Conn.

“People are starting to think more strategically about giving,” says Schwab Charitable President Kim Laughton. “It really started last fall. What’s nice is it’s continuing this year.”

Readers reacted loudly to news that the CFP Board sanctioned former chairman, Alan Goldfarb for selecting “fee only” and, later, “salary” to describe his income on a form on the FPA website.

Can women trust you to be their advisor?

St. Louis-based Buckingham Asset Management has added JWA Financial Group of Dallas in its latest acquisition.

FINRA has censured Securities America and fined it $100,000 for making inaccurate and misleading statements to clients via emails.

When advisors are asked to describe their compensation on the FPA website, they can choose to check one of four options: fee-only, commission-only, a combination of fee and commission, or salary. But as one prominent advisor recently learned, those options are dangerously limited, given the industry’s often complex business models -- and the answers that planners select can contain minefields for the advisors, their firms and their clients.

Christian Widen has left his position as a director of Pershing Advisor Solutions to return to the rapidly growing firm where he began his career, Boston-based U.S. Wealth Management.

RCAP CEO Nick Schorsch says the deal could be a "tipping point" in a new wave of private equity investment in independent broker-dealers.

John Hancock Financial Network is picking up another 280 registered representatives?with the acquisition of Symetra Investment Services.

Art Tambaro, president and CEO of Royal Alliance Associates, (left) one of four independent broker-dealers owned by AIG’s Advisor Group, will retire at the end of the year. He will be replaced by Dmitry Goldin, a member of Royal’s senior leadership team for the last decade.

After more than four years with LPL, veteran independent broker-dealer marketing executive Marissa Fox Foley has joined First Allied Securities in a newly created role as senior managing director of marketing.

“There’s a huge shift this year from last year in overall optimism from the advisors,” says Mark Schoenbeck, senior vice president of marketing for Curian Capital, the asset management firm that conducted the 2013 Curian Capital Survey. “It was a pretty big swing.”