Practice

The Securities and Exchange Commission has closed a loophole that previously allowed individuals to artificially inflate net worth before investing in unregistered securities offerings. Advisers are generally supportive of the change.

The MF Global collapse provides an important lesson concerning the effectiveness of the principal, or proprietary, banking model. Leading up to the financial crisis, principal banking had replaced slow-growing, client-focused agency banking as the dominant model for large banks. Institutions focused on executing transactions as principals for their own accounts instead of for their clients.

The population may be aging, but that hasn’t gotten a lot of Americans to plan for retirement. About 71% of Americans lack a formal investment plan to help them reach their retirement goals, according to one study.

Financial planners who work with households with $1 million in investable assets say the rule makes sense.

Every new year, many financial planners prompt clients to revisit and update their estate plans and wills. In so doing, they should begin teaching clients about a new – but critical – area of estate planning: attending to their digital legacies.

This week, IRA expert Ed Slott fields questions from investors about transferring IRAs to beneficiaries, converting traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs and required minimum distributions from inherited accounts.

The population may be aging, but that hasn’t gotten a lot of Americans to plan for retirement. About 71% of Americans lack a formal investment plan to help them reach their retirement goals, according to one study.

Total retirement assets fell to $17 trillion by the end of the third quarter, down 7.5% from the record high of $18.4 trillion that investors socked away in the prior quarter. The decline corresponded with a 13.9% drop in the S&P 500 during the third quarter.

A FINRA arbitration panel slapped a former Bank of America Merrill Lynch financial advisor – now with U.S. Bancorp Investments – with an injunction that will prohibit him from soliciting his former clients until October 2012.

After a decade marked by two severe bear markets, 401(k) investors have adopted a more balanced approach to their portfolios, according to a report from the Investment Company Institute and the Employee Benefit Research Institute.