Ann Marsh

Realizing that advisors needed help in the current low-yield environment, Schwab decided to offer an automatic bond ladder investment composed entirely of PIMCO municipal bonds.

Some seniors paid extra for riders that no longer applied because of their age, FINRA says.

A former Morgan Keegan registered rep agreed to be barred permanently from the industry for putting 10 of his middle-class clients into “unsuitable” investments –- highly leveraged ETFs, regulators said.

Rex Staples’ securities enforcement experience and his background in securities law will be “a great asset” to the CFP Board, said Kevin Keller, the board’s CEO.

California-based investment advisor James Michael Murray allegedly defrauded investors using a bogus report from a fictitious auditing firm to embellish the performance of a hedge fund, according to the SEC.

If an industry-wide fiduciary standard is adopted, what might the practicalities of meeting that standard be? Citi’s financial services unit has some possible technology-based answers to this question.

Americans feel optimistic about their immediate financial future and accept responsibility for their own financial security, according to a new CFP Board survey.

San Diego-based Planner William Blanton and his team at Vintage Wealth Capital Management brought their $170 million book of business to Washington Wealth Management this week, in the latest addition to the rapidly growing Middleburg, Va.-based RIA.

The advisor allegedly used client money to buy a $3.35 million beach resort being developed by a relative.

The odds of being single at some point during retirement are high and present unique challenges for both “ever single” retirees who never married and for those who become “suddenly single” in retirement due to divorce or death of a spouse. In fact, 43 percent of Americans age 65 and older are single due to divorce, having never married, or the death of a partner.

For many planners with high-net-worth minimums for their clients, target-date funds don’t make sense for a variety of reasons. But in the right circumstances, they can be helpful tools.

As banks nationwide struggle to process troubled assets off their books, middle market companies have not been able to get the loans they need to grow. Private money is stepping in to fill that gap – and providing yields that planners are seeking for their HNW clients.

Financial planner Ed Guanill is joining author and RIA Keith Springer at his Sacramento, Calif.-based firm, Springer Financial Advisors.

Going forward, investment advisors will no longer be able to include the value of an investor's home in a new $1 million minimum of investable assets now required to charge performance fees, according to the SEC, which is tightening its rule around fees.

To help busy advisors increase the frequency with which they contact clients, Cetera recently launched a new online marketing solution, Connect2Client. It’s designed to enable advisors to send out emails, paper postcards, newsletters with in-depth articles and a variety of messages, including birthday greetings, on a regular basis.

Planner, author and New York Times blogger Carl Richards, founder of Prasada Capital Management, has joined St. Louis-based BAM Advisor Services as its director of investor education.

The global effort by the U.S. government to catch American tax cheats intensified this week as France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom agreed to support a broad new U.S. law requiring foreign financial institutions to disclose information about the foreign bank accounts of U.S. citizens.

In an address to a peer group of high-net-worth investors in New York City, George Soros told the audience that he would have little to say to cheer them about the state of the global economy.

With a projected valuation of as much as $100 billion, Facebook’s imminent IPO may portend great things for social media. But many planners feel less bullish about its prospects for delivering investment returns.

Hatteras Funds CEO Brian Jacobs predicts there will be an increasing convergence between the mutual fund and hedge fund worlds as more companies seek to offer hedge fund strategies to mass-market investors.