Dave Lindorff

Financial advisors who work in the insurance channel may not make most of their revenue from fees for handling clients assets under management, but a majority of them think that is where the most growth in their business is likely come from going forward.

Don’t count Bill Gross, managing director of the giant investment management firm PIMCO, among those expressing relief at the government’s recent debt ceiling compromise or any subsequent package of budget cuts that may materialize over the next 10 years.

The likely downgrading of America’s sterling AAA debt rating by Standard & Poor's, which some analysts suggest might happen later this month, could cause a “severe” impact on fixed income markets “for some time,” according to Sanford Bernstein analyst Brad Hintz.

With markets reacting negatively to concerns about a weakening U.S. economy, investors might do well to look at the consumer staples sector, according to Standard & Poor's equity analyst Thomas Graves in a new report released Tuesday.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) closed out the first half of the year by closing down another three banks, bringing its total number of closings for first six months of 2011 to 61. More troubling, however, is the fact that it now has identified another 888 as "problem institutions."

Fixed income investment professionals are worried about the prospects for the U.S. economy and are becoming very concerned the continuing stagnation in the jobs market.

Whatever the members of the House and Senate do Monday night with the deficit ceiling and deficit-trimming bill that is being put to a vote, the U.S. is not out of the woods yet, according to Morningstar Investment Management economist Francisco Torralba.

Hold on to your hat. We may be headed for a double-dip recession. In fact, when more current economic data arrives a few months from now, it may turn out that we’re already in one, according to a pair of economists at Moody's Capital Markets Research Group.

A failure by politicians in Washington to reach a deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling in the next few days -- particularly if Standard & Poor's makes good on its threat to lower the country's AAA sovereign debt rating -- could have “deep and wide reverberations” in credit and equities markets, according to Todd Rosenbluth, an analyst at S&P Equity Research. But bond funds might be unscathed.

Effective July 21, the Securities and Exchange Commission said that any new investment advisor who is managing more than $25 million and less than $100 million will have to join smaller investment advisors in registering with the state regulatory authority where she or he is based. The only exceptions are New York and Wyoming where, because those states don’t require any examination of investment advisors, all investment advisors would still have to register with and be regulated by the SEC.

National Planning Holdings, Inc., one of the nation’s larger independent broker-dealer networks, announced this week it has contracted with business technology firm Erado to supply its more than 3,500 affiliated representatives with compliance services for social media applications.

In what may be a sign of a tightening of regulation of social media use by investment advisors, the Securities Division of the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s Office is issuing new guidelines and best practices standards that will go into effect next year.

Securities America, the nation's seventh-largest independent broker-dealer according to Financial Planning's 2011 revenue rankings, continues to lose reps at rapid clip as they and the rest of the industry await the unit's eventual sale.

As the deadline for raising the U.S. debt ceiling nears, anxious investors are wondering whether they should be worried about a market crash and, if so, how they can protect their portfolios. IndexIQ thinks it has an answer -- one that gives investors downside protection, but also allows them to benefit if things go the other way and Washington strikes a deal by the Aug. 2 deadline.

There are two gigantic economic crises weighing heavily on the minds of investors and government leaders right now: the raising of the debt ceiling and the risk to the country’s venerable AAA sovereign debt rating. But one UBS strategist believes all this anxiety and posturing will likely amount to much ado about nothing.

For many employees faced with the prospect of having to save for rising healthcare costs and for retirement, it's important to understand that it doesn't necessarily have to be an either/or decision.

Faithshares is getting out of the Christian values exchange-traded fund business, confirming this week it will shutter its last remaining religious values-based ETF, the Christian Values Fund ETF (FOC), sometime next month.

The earthquake, tsunami and ensuing damage to nuclear power plants that rocked Japan in early March were blamed for a good chunk of the slowdown that hit the U.S. economy this spring. But now Moody’s Analytics is reporting that half of the loss of output in Japanese economic and industrial activity resulting from the disaster has rebounded, and the outlook for 2012 is for 3.2% growth.

It turns out, talk of Bank of America's proposed settlement with a group of institutional investors that suffered steep financial losses investing in mortgage-backed security issued by mortgage loan provider Countrywide Financial Corp. may be a bit premature.

Even if the politicians in Washington do manage to raise the debt ceiling, all the red ink and all the money printed by the Federal Reserve to prop up the economy over the past three years make it likely, according to some experts, that inflation could be on the rise and that reality has many investors understandably unnerved.