Portfolio

Even as a new video has brought negative attention to Mitt Romney's campaign, a new poll finds financial advisors still think he's the best pick to lead the country.

CFO4LIFE, a Coppell, Texax, financial planning firm with more than $450 million in assets, announced Thursday it is departing from LPL Financial to become an RIA.

In 2013, asset managers will face the challenges of volatile markets, ramped up regulations, increased need for capital preservation, and a general tendency towards risk aversion. Yet even in a globally compressed economy, there are pockets of underlying opportunities and under-served investors. From our friends at Ceruilli, here are trends for advisors (and their clients) to watch in 2013.

Abigail Johnson, the newly minted president of Fidelity Financial Services, the parent company of mutual fund giant Fidelity Investments, was notched at #27 in the recently published Forbes 400 List of the Richest People in America, leading all other members of the mutual fund world, including a member of her own family.

AllianceBernstein has hired two new executives for its alternative business, which the firm has targeted for expansion.

"A lot of advisors say they have a team," said Jeff Fishman, who heads JSF Financial in Los Angeles. "When you talk to them, you find out they have a bunch of people who came from wirehouses. We have a real team: people from different backgrounds who play different roles."

Total estimated inflows to long-term mutual funds were $6.12 billion for the week ended Wednesday, September 12, according to data from the Investment Company Institute.

The agency is targeting Summit Wealth Management, a registered investment advisor, and Angelo Alleca, who is charged with defrauding investors in what the SEC describes as a scheme that sought to conceal losses from trades that went bad through the creation of new private funds that were used to repay the original investors.

For the week ended Sept. 12, investors pulled an estimated $2.75 billion from funds that invest long-term in U.S. stocks, marking the eighth consecutive week of outflows.

Total estimated inflows to long-term mutual funds were $6.12 billion for the week ended Wednesday, September 12, according to data from the Investment Company Institute.