Dave Lindorff

Securities America, the broker-dealer firm owned by Ameriprise Financial, may be closer to a sale amid word that its reps and advisors are being asked to sign loyalty pledges -- a common practice that often occurs when the sale of a company is being negotiated.

There is an ongoing debate in the U.S. over commission-based and fee-based advisors. Right now, it’s the investor’s choice as to which type of arrangement to go with. By this time next year, that won't be the case in the United Kingdom.

Are municipal bonds coming back into favor? Some industry analysts seem to think so.

After a couple years of strong growth and impressive returns in the market, many of Wall Street's biggest investment banks are reportedly considering some headcount reductions to cut costs.

Investors concerned that the equities markets and the economy seem to be hitting a soft patch might think about looking at stocks that have a long history of paying dividends.

Even if they bite the bullet and stay on the job well past retirement age and late into their 70s, most Baby Boomers and the Gen-Xers who follow them will not have enough savings to cover their basic retirement expenses and out-of-pocket health costs.

Giant financial institutions and wirehouses that spent fortunes attracting and retaining top-producing brokers and wealth managers over the past few years may be about to get socked with a big wave of departures this year and, especially, in 2012.

Forget ATM machines. Financial institutions that want to stay competitive are going to have to work the phones if they want to hang on to their customers in the future. That is to say, they’ll have to make their services accessible by smartphone.

Four FaithShares' exchange traded funds (ETFs) tailored for individual Christian denominations are being discontinued due to flagging investor interest.

linkedFA, a social networking web site designed specifically for financial professionals, announced a strategic relationship with Thomson Reuters, the New York-based business information service, to provide financial data to advisors using the social network.

New study finds banks -- large and small -- need to do a better job of implementing the technology and processes necessary to curtail money laundering activity in order to avoid the stiff fines already levied on their peers.

Even after an embarrassing online porn scandal rocked the regulatory agency last year, a new report from SEC Inspector General David Kotz finds some staffers are still going to great lengths to access these racy sites on company time.

Financial advisors and their clients could be bucking some serious macroeconomic headwinds through the rest of 2011 as consumer confidence continues to erode, unemployment remains high and housing prices deteriorate.

Annuity products, both fixed and variable, had a good run in the bank channel during the first quarter of 2011.

New rules will make it possible for financial fraud tipsters to pocket a bounty of up to 30% of any recovery or sanctions of more than $1 million and provides new protections from employers.

Variable annuities sales in 2011 climbed significantly in early 2011, continuing a trend begun last year, and reversing a slide that saw them fall from a high of $184 billion in 2007 to a low of $128 billion in 2009.

A group of Democratic members of the House, led by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), has written to the Department of Labor criticizing a new rule that would redefine the term fiduciary in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

Atlantic Trust seems to have discovered a money management model that works.

How is a financial advisor supposed to go through the array of annuity products on offer and find the best ones for each client’s investment and retirement needs, especially when many of the products on offer are changing almost every year?

Worries about the future of Social Security and of Medicare, as well as the experience of the last market crash and the housing slump, have left an increasing number of Americans worried about whether they will have adequate resources to provide for their retirement years, and are making them more open to financial advice.