Ann Marsh

There is strength in numbers, and practices across the country are banking on size to position themselves for success.

Nearly two years after a UBS wealth manager was found dead in her bathtub on New Year’s Eve, a New York court official has filed a wrongful death suit accusing the late Shele Danishefsky Covlin’s estranged husband, a former stock trader, of strangling his wife.

Planners should pay close attention to a new U.S. tax statute that will take effect in the 2012 tax year that experts say could make it difficult for their clients to keep their American citizenship and their foreign-based assets at the same time.

Every new year, many financial planners prompt clients to revisit and update their estate plans and wills. In so doing, they should begin teaching clients about a new – but critical – area of estate planning: attending to their digital legacies.

Washington Wealth Management, a breakaway RIA founded last December, continued its explosive growth by acquiring its third breakaway advisor in just the past three weeks, bringing it ever closer to $1 billion in AUM.

Shrinking margins in the independent broker-dealer space have prompted another independent broker-dealer, Seattle-based Pacific West Financial Group, to close its doors.

Planners aren't as enthusiastic as some of their clients about gold and silver.

Financial professionals, 86% of whom have at least one social media account, risk running afoul of compliance rules as regulatory bodies sort out the rules for advisors’ use of these new channels. That was the message from social medial expert Alexandra Basak Russell, at the Women Advisors Forum in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Merrill Lynch is helping its advisors and clients change their most basic assumptions about investing, according to Jennifer Williams, branch manager of the company’s Newport Beach, Calif., office told the audience at the Women Advisors Forum today in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Only 31% of financial advisors in the U.S. are women. Only 20% of women investors have a financial advisor, but 70% would like to work with a female planner. These numbers are even more impressive given that women possess at least half -- if not more -- of all private wealth in the country and control 80% of all household purchases.

A recent survey of 1,000 mass affluent investors uncovered a statistic that startled researchers: 75% of men said they wanted their spouse or partner to take more a more responsible role with their joint money.

Many planners don’t know a key neurobiological fact about a panicked client: namely, the client may not be able to process any advice until they calm down, Cynthia Harrington, a Los Angeles-based behavioral health consultant to the financial services industry, told a gathering of planners at the Women Advisors Forum in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Cetera Financial Group CEO Valerie Brown shares four lessons she said have had great impact on both her business and her life during the Women Advisors Forum in Huntington Beach, Calif.

It’s perhaps the ultimate irony when a financial advisor files for bankruptcy. But the CFP Board finds it is happening more and more often. Of 103 disciplinary hearings the board held last year, an estimated 25% of planners involved had filed for bankruptcy. In 2011, that number jumped to about a third.

The SEC has charged a prominent San Diego-based financial advisor with fraud, accusing him and his firm of failing to disclose to clients a conflict of interest in an investment and lying to and misleading clients about a hedge fund he manages.

In this low interest rate environment, some financial planners are advising their clients to cut the middleman out entirely with intra-family loans.

Anyone interested in investing in or doing business with Chinese companies should understand China’s fundamentally different corporate values, said Joshua Cooper Ramo, a keynote speaker at the Schwab Impact 2011 conference in San Francisco.

Many of the nearly 1.6 million nonprofits and charities in the country are in need of advisory services. With assets growing at 8.5%, this group represents a healthy market for advisors looking to grow their client base, according to Gary Price, managing principal at Fund Evaluation Group.

BlackRock managing director paints bleak economic picture but says corporate balance sheets are still solid.

Jerome Abernathy of Rydex SGI says alternative investment strategies will be increasingly critical for advisors who want to generate yield for their clients while also protecting them against systemic financial shocks.