Portfolio

While spending years in litigation over a single piece of art is unusual, family fights over valuable or sentimental personal property left by a deceased loved one are far from uncommon. The mess involving a Warhol portrait of Farrah Fawcett offers an important estate planning lesson for advisors.

As advisors increasingly move toward a fee-based business model, BIC looks at the most successful advisors in the channel. Here are the top 25 bank advisors based on their fee-based business.

The contraction in the U.S. market for borrowing and lending securities amid rising interest rates and heightened global bank regulation will increase this year, according to Fitch Ratings.

Many considered Dec. 31, 2013, the final date for year-end tax planning, but there are numerous planning actions that you can take in 2014 retroactive to 2013. Here's a quick and easy guide to help with planning.

An advisory group in Winter Park, Fla. with $550 million in client assets leaves Morgan Stanley to go independent.

Financial services firms' 2014 plans center on product lines, distribution capabilities and technology, according to a survey done by Cerulli Associates.

The move is part of a shift of emphasis from life insurance "to a more well-rounded protection and retirement planning approach."

Granite Financial says it hopes moving to the IBD will power growth.

Certain securities salespeople are giving the brokerage industry a bad name by putting clients into manifestly unsuitable securities, namely leveraged and inversed ETFs, which are attracting wary and watchful eyes among U.S. regulators.

Gold climbed to the highest level in a month on speculation that the Federal Reserve will slow the pace of cuts to stimulus after U.S. payrolls increased less than analysts forecast. Silver, platinum and palladium rose.