Donna M. Mitchell

The repeal of the 3% withholding tax might actually make life easier for financial planners and their clients.

The team is taking about $1.2 million in production with them. The move makes Brancucci and Crossan managing partners at the practice, which has more than $100 million in AUM.

For financial planners, it means they might have to work a lot harder to get younger investors to recognize the value of investing in stocks.

Business is running smoothly now, but Financial Planning senior editor Donna Mitchell says ARGI Financial had to overcome some operational hurdles — ultimately changing custodians and back-office systems — to get to this point.

Chief Market Strategist Douglas Coté said record levels of earnings, an all-time record high of aggregate consumer spending, and booming production by companies like Caterpillar are reasons for optimism.

Independent asset management firms will control two-thirds of industry AUM by 2015, McKinsey predicted.

The Chase unit recommended risky investments to unsophisticated investors with little or no risk tolerance, FINRA said.

Not all Wall Street professionals will see a pay cut. Advisors and private bankers working directly with high net worth clients will likely see bonuses that are flat or even 5% higher.

Fringe Benefit Administrators will keep its name under the Lincoln Trust umbrella, and expand the Denver firm’s presence in the Southeast.

Total revenue at FSC Securities, Royal Alliance and SagePoint Financial combined was up nearly 20%.

Peak Capital’s call center in Dallas will drive growth for the company and new parent United Capital in the years ahead. It has been an effective lead generation technique.

A Georgetown University professor has proposed a different idea in the ongoing debate over how investment advisors should be effectively regulated: outsource the heavy lifting to accounting firms.

What is there to do on LinkedIn everyday? As it turns out, there are several powerful free tools that can help advisors market their practices as well as help them search effectively for new clients. Financial Planning senior editor Donna Mitchell says that planners who aren’t taking advantage of these functions (remember: they’re free) probably should be.

Financial planners across the globe are just as aware of the potential repercussions that Dodd-Frank Act implementation and other regulatory issues will have on the profession as their U.S. counterparts, the head of the Financial Planning Standards Board said during a media briefing Monday morning.

The Core Elements conference will replace the Core Competency conferences NAPFA had staged in two previous years during the summer.

Company attributes the dip in AUM to the decline in equity markets and net outflows in the asset management segment.

Despite severe volatility in equities that chipped away at advisory assets, LPL Investment Holdings benefited from a hastening shift to advisory business models away from brokerage ones and turned in huge net income gains for the third quarter.

To be well prepared for succession, owners of financial planning practices should make sure employees are able to advance their careers within the firms. Firm owners should also learn how to manage Generation Y workers, because they’re going to be key to keeping practices alive.

Financial planners have several tools they can use to steer clients away from destructive behavior, said industry experts at a conference in New York on Tuesday.

Firm principals will need to manage costs and people effectively or risk falling behind their peers, Mark Tibergien, chief executive officer of Pershing Advisor Solutions, said during a Money Management Institute conference address this week.