Practice

Financial Planning columnist Bob Veres says advisors need to understand what could happen if FINRA becomes their regulator.

Tablets have fundamentally changed the way financial advisors do their work and there’s every reason to believe they will continue to be the dominant tool of choice in the advisory community for years to come.

Ahead of the Department of Labor’s anticipated proposal to redefine fiduciary responsibility, expected sometime in 2012, 55 House Republicans sent a letter asking for more careful consideration of the effects on consumer choice before any new rule is proposed.

Neuberger Berman has placed Fayad Abbasi, an analyst at the center of a federal insider-trading probe, on paid leave.

Since the financial crisis and Great Recession, 401(k) plans have undergone dramatic shifts. To foster diversification and greater participation, 51% of participants in Fidelity Investments' 401(k) plans are in automatically enrolled plans, up from 16% five years ago, and 73% of the plans use target-date funds as the default, up from 11% in 2006.

From Dodd-Frank to new taxes on professional services, lawmakers are increasingly making and suggesting changes that could dramatically impact planners and their clients. The planning community hasn't sat idle amid all this rule-making. In fact, the Financial Planning Association and its regional chapters have gotten more politically active than they've been in the past.

Since the financial crisis and Great Recession, 401(k) plans have undergone dramatic shifts. To foster diversification and greater participation, 51% of participants in Fidelity Investments' 401(k) plans are in automatically enrolled plans, up from 16% five years ago, and 73% of the plans use target-date funds as the default, up from 11% in 2006. In the past year, 64% of sponsors changed their investment lineup-up dramatically from 20% in 2008.

The second iteration of the European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive is supposed to fix what was wrong with the first version, adopted in 2007.

Marketing expert Marie Swift says creating perceptions in the listener’s mind is an important marketing aspect for financial advisors. A good “elevator speech” is a succinct way to tell your story and distinguish you from others. It's also a way to qualify potential clients and to generate referrals, with an oft-overlooked bonus: confidence.

The second iteration of the European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive is supposed to fix what was wrong with the first version, adopted in 2007.