Practice

Fifty-five percent of 401(k) participants say they would not be saving for retirement if it were not for their workplace savings plan, Fidelity Investments found in a survey of 1,000 participants and retirees. Additionally, 19% say they have no retirement savings outside of their 401(k) plan.

One year into the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, regulators need to work to ensure the future competitiveness of the U.S. market as the watershed legislation takes shape, industry officials said Wednesday.

The National Securities Clearing Corp. has developed a new automated service for clearing brokers to establish, monitor and update their relationships with broker-dealers for qualified special representative (QSR) and correspondent clearing transactions.

Schwab Advisor Services this week introduced a new software application called LaserApp that lets advisors automatically load new client data onto 80 different Schwab forms.

Lincoln Trust Company has introduced the Personalized Expense Ratio for the 401(k) plans that it administers. The ratio is designed for participants, plan sponsors and advisers to see the actual cost of their plans without having to perform calculations themselves.

While investors feel that some cautionary fences have gone up around the industry and some are more confident about working with financial advisers, the Dodd-Frank Act has not delivered substantial changes to the financial advisory industry since President Obama signed it into law almost a year ago.

Employers are feeling confident about their financial futures and that means more new hires, fewer layoffs, and an increase in retirement benefits and reinstatements of certain benefits, according to the 12th Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey released on Tuesday.

While investors feel that some cautionary fences have gone up around the industry and some are more confident about working with financial advisors, the Dodd-Frank Act has not delivered substantial changes to the financial advisory industry since President Obama signed it into law almost a year ago.

Besides the standard questions about income, assets, debt, etc, what kind of questions do you ask to get to the core of your client's hopes and dreams? Do you ask them what scares them about retirement?

Celebrity heirs fighting over the estate is far from uncommon but it is unusual when an ugly court battle starts before the celebrity even dies. That certainly has been the case with the Dennis Hopper estate.