Practice

About a week ago, Prudential released preliminary survey results indicating that when shopping for retirement plans, consumers between the ages of 18 and 36 were more interested than those over age 45 in guaranteed income features. The company is leveraging these results with additional features, including security, to certain plans offered by Prudential Retirement.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has defined tweets as “static content” it is widely watch pilot test of Twitter and Linked In involving 600 of its 18,000 financial advisors. Here's a look at what you and your firm need to know to drive a successful social media plan.

The SEC is now requiring alternative investment fund managers to provide a lot more details on their operations.

The SEC has ordered FINRA to improve the way it handles documents submitted during SEC inspections. The order, issued Thursday as part of an administrative settlement between the two organizations, comes after the disclosure that the director of FINRA’s Kansas City Office in 2008 ordered the minutes of three meetings dating back to 2006 and 2007 to be altered hours before they were they were provided to the SEC’s Chicago Regional Office.

Vanguard has filed with the SEC to offer the Vanguard Target 2060 Retirement Fund for those currently 18 to 20 years old, and early next year will merge the Vanguard Target Retirement 2005 Fund and the Vanguard Target Retirement Income Fund, as their allocations have become nearly identical.

Investors contributed $748 million to Fidelity Charitable, the largest donor-advised fund in the U.S., in the first nine months of 2011, a 23% increase from the first three quarters of 2010. Thus, the fund is on course to receive the largest amount of contributions in its 20-year history, Fidelity said.

Financial advisors are constantly on the lookout for new and more engaging and effective ways to market their services to prospective clients. Here’s a compilation of all the latest and most effective marketing tips, techniques and first-hand accounts you and your firm will need to raise your profile and increase your assets under management.

A “network connectivity issue” involving a next-generation trading system from Nasdaq OMX Group took down the $1.2 trillion Australian Securities Exchange for four hours Thursday.

Social media evangelists argue that the popularity of the new medium reflects a profound shift in the way investors scout for financial advice, making online social channels too important for advisors to ignore.

Tweets are ‘static content’ in the eyes of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, which operates a network of 18,000 financial advisers.