Practice

Developing talent should be as important to executives as developing strategy.

"When you practice Sales Intelligence, you’ll win twice the business of those who ‘wing it,'" according to ActiFi's Sam Richter. "You’ll ensure relevancy and impress any client, any prospect, every time."

Making the right support staff hires can improve the overall efficiency of a financial advisory firm and make it easier for top advisors to seek out and serve new clients, says Dan Davis, president and co-founder of ADK Wealth Advisory Group in St. Louis.

Criminal charges were filed Thursday against a former financial adviser at UBS Financial Services who the Securities and Exchange Commission charged with siphoning $3.3 million from investors to pay for luxury cars, prostitutes and gambling debts.

Although 2010 was generally a good year for retirement plan investors, with average balances returning to pre-recession levels, MassMutual found in a survey of 1,517 participants, women appeared to become far more cautious investors—with gap in confidence between women and men widening.

With JPMorgan rumored to be eyeing a minority stake in Twitter that would value the company at $4.5 billion, it’s time for advisors to start taking it seriously. Not surprisingly, like many other aspects of web-marketing and social media, how an advisor uses Twitter is different from most everyone else.

Four more members of Congress have sent letters to the SEC expressing concerns or raising questions about provisions in its proposed muni advisor registration rules that would treat state and local appointed board members as muni advisers who would be subject to registration and regulation.

The recession rocked women’s confidence in their investment decisions, according to a survey released Thursday by MassMutual.

The more you hear about the SEC examination process, the more you realize that the examiners can't quickly recognize the honest advisors from the crooks, and are generally more interested in finding fault with the honest advisors than identifying the crooks.

Criminal charges were filed Thursday against a former financial advisor at UBS Financial Services whom the Securities and Exchange Commission charged with siphoning $3.3 million from investors to pay for luxury cars, prostitutes and gambling debts.