Practice

Planning for retirement isn’t just about hitting the “magic number.”

Fidelity Investments reported Thursday that one-third of all of the Roth IRA conversions it handled for advisers and individual investors occurred in December.

The two marriage partners did not describe this as a ‘merger of equals.’ Deutche Borse shareholders, after all, will have 60% control. But NYSE Euronext chief executive Duncan Niederauer says it’s not a takeover. So what is it?

Senate Banking Committee Republicans worry Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro and other regulators are rushing to implement rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act without sufficient regard to cost-benefit analyses or public comments.

Pretirement described was supposed to be for those who were somewhere “between the rat race and the rocking chair," but over the last few years, the concept - if not the name itself - has begun to take hold among a much broader – and younger - group.

There's a post-retirement crisis coming. But research indicates that the very individuals that most need guaranteed income in their lives are most resistant, according to Shlomo Benartzi, an expert in how human behavior affects the financing of human lives.

"Social media" is not just some amorphous glob of communications outlets to be employed or avoided. Here's the quick setup to get going with a strategy to use social technologies effectively.

The CFP Board of Standards handed down disciplinary actions against 27 financial planners who use the CFP mark, the board announced.

Joseph Price, FINRA senior vice president of corporate financing and advertising regulation, told Dow Jones a second Social Networking Task Force will meet in March and more guidance will be issued by the end of the year.

The sweeping move affected financial planners in 14 states, and is the largest number of sanctions that the CFP Board has issued in three years, Dan Drummond, a CFP Board spokesman said in a telephone interview Wednesday morning.