Practice

In addition, 55% don’t know how much they will need to retire.

A House oversight committee hearing slated to examine state and municipal debt Thursday devolved into an extended debate about collective bargaining, featuring two sitting governors from opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Small business owners first crippled by the economic downturn and then further encumbered by a tight lending environment in its aftermath are set to hire more workers, make more capital investments and are reducing their retirement savings targets this year as they set their sights on growth and expansion.

As Boomers start moving into retirement, a huge pool of money is “in motion,” reports a study by Pershing LLC, and those financial advisors who manage to “capture the retirement relationship” with investment clients stand to gain 50% more of those clients’ wallets.

Some advisors are averse to even DISCUSSING the value of portfolio management, possibly believing that we all spend too much time talking as if financial planning and portfolio management are the same service--which they clearly are not.

FINRA fined Jefferies & Co. $1.5 million, ordered the investment bank to repay $425,000 in ill-gotten commissions and fees and suspended a pair of its brokers for failing to disclose additional compensation to institutional clients and other conflicts of interest related to shady sales of auction rate securities between August 2007 and March 2008.

Four in 10 working Americans say they will never be able to afford to retire, a Harris Interactive survey of 1,005 adults for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants found.

AXA Equitable has launched two new “virtual consultation” calculators accompanied with videos of licensed and experienced financial consultants to help individuals determine how much life insurance they may need and how long their retirement savings will last.

Wealthy women want three things from their financial advisors: honesty, trustworthiness, and transparency, according to “Wealthy Women Investors,” a Spectrem eZine report released on Thursday.

Despite the first quarter being a slower time for charitable giving, Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund announced on Thursday that it had its strongest first quarter in its 20-year history.