Ann Marsh

The SEC has accused a Chicago advisor and his firm of defrauding clients and others by promising them a private equity fund the firm managed would “beat the market."

These record levels are expected to continue through the end of the year as individuals and their advisors seek to meet charitable giving priorities while also navigating the uncertain outlook for taxes given the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts at year’s end, according to Schwab.

To help its advisors grow their businesses, Cetera Financial Group is bringing on a fleet of new advisory and product sales consultants. The added manpower is intended to give each consultant and sales manager more time to provide in-person and virtual support to advisors as the firm re-engineers its advisor support regions, according to Cetera.

Across the asset class of emerging market debt, upgrades are far outpacing downgrades. As a result, more than 50% of emerging market fixed income investments have become investment grade, says Luz Padilla, senior portfolio manager of the emerging markets fixed income strategy at DoubleLine Capital in Los Angeles.

Part of the steady uptick in investment in emerging market fixed income is due to the appearance of new players from the emerging markets themselves.

There are a host of reasons why emerging market debt has been looking sweeter to investors.

Want to have deeper conversations with your clients? Start talking about philanthropy, says one expert.

Young and up-and-coming planner Winnie Sun is a passionate advocate for the role that social media can play in attracting Generation Y clients. But recently a routine LinkedIn inquiry she made yielded a benefit that surprised even her: a huge client prospect who she thinks she never could have met otherwise

Three years ago, Shannon Ryan of Manhattan Beach, Calif., left a position training and overseeing advisors with Ameriprise to return to full-time planning herself. The veteran of a successful planning practice years earlier on the East Coast, Ryan realized that her neighbors in California knew her mainly as the mother to two young daughters.

Some planners join boards. Others volunteer for local causes. Sun Group Wealth Partners in Irvine, Calif., decided to build bridges with its community by funding memberships for about 1,000 families of kids with special needs like autism to a unique educational museum called Pretend City.

In the wake of a settlement of a patent infringement lawsuit involving two major financial planning software products, both sides are proclaiming victory.

Level Four Group, a Plano, Texas, based advisory firm with close to $1 billion in assets under management has moved from Lincoln Financial to LPL in a bid to grow by using the LPL platform and name to increase its stable of advisors.

PIEtech, Inc., maker of the popular planning software product MoneyGuidePro, has settled a patent infringement lawsuit brought against it and UBS Financial Services by its competitor, Wealthcare Capital Management.

Expect more financial regulatory changes, Schwab executives suggested Thursday -- and be wary of a new recession if Congress and the new administration don’t take steps to keep the country from going all the way over the so-called fiscal cliff

Approximately 300 advisors affiliated with independent broker-dealer Symetra Investment Services, based in Bellevue, Wash., now have access to a Envestnet's online tools, including aggregated reporting capabilities.

Ultimately, damages to the region could amount to $50 billion, according to Jim Kane, president of personal insurance at HUB International. Even at this early stage, he says, there are several pieces of advice that planners can (and should) offer to clients who are contending with damages.

Forget about fake scares: Advisor spends Halloween holed up at "secret" church to recharge laptop and reach out to clients.

Worried about possible flooding from Hurricane Sandy, Lancaster, Pa., planner Rick Rodgers spent Monday night at the fortified headquarters of his namesake firm -- a building that looks like a mansion on a Southern plantation.

Amid the driving wind and rain, advisors battled back with generators, data backups ... and chainsaws.

Demand for liquidity has advisors saying they're planning to boost ETF use, according to a Guggenheim survey.