Practice

In addition to the emotional issues surrounding clients’ financial decision-making, most advisors’ skill sets are not aligned with the task ahead.

“Before allowing our reps to use social media, we needed a technology solution to handle our complex regulatory needs,” says Chad Oppedal, assistant director of compliance for the Principal Financial Group.

Matrix Financial Solutions has expanded the functionality of TrueOpen, its core mutual fund trading platform, to address growing demands from retirement plan providers and advisors.

Morningstar, Inc. has launched a new alternative investments center as part of several enhancements to MorningstarAdvisor.com, a free website that provides advisors with practice management information, investment trends, and industry insights.

SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro told a financial services subcommittee of the House of Representatives that the federal regulator intends to spend $100 million of its $1.6 billion requested budget for fiscal 2013 on information systems and another $50 million on modernizing the EDGAR stock information database and www.sec.gov, its public website.

Marketing expert Marie Swift says niche marketing cannot only help advisors attract significantly more business, but also provide richer opportunities for self-expression.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management has hired Richard Gray as managing director and institutional client advisor, based in New York and focused primarily on corporate defined benefit plans and public fund retirement plan clients. This is a new position reporting to Andrea Lisher, East Team Lead for Institutional Advisory Sales at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

Banks looking to boost their profits are missing the boat on a big opportunity: marketing investment and insurance products to mass-affluent households.

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.