Practice

How you assess the banking industry's health from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s latest earnings report may depend on which page you turn to.

Fidelity Investments reported Wednesday that the average 401(k) account balance held with it hit a 10-year high of $71,500 at the end of 2010. For participants who continuously contributed to their 401(k) the average balance increased to $183,100 from $59,100 a decade ago.

Dodd-Frank contains a series of ambitious deadlines requiring regulators to complete 170 or so new rules by July. But it's become clear the agencies are going to miss many targets.

The St. Louis brokerage company continues to its slow-but-steady growth with new addition in Connecticut.

This comes shortly after seven other FA’s joined MSSB.

A Florida retiree who gave her Wachovia broker a second chance "to do a better job" with her IRA investments has filed claim against Wells Fargo after suffering losses, again.

Curian Capital found that 62% of advisors say that improving efficiency and overall time management is a major goal for the coming year.

Just as the market volatility of the last few years has been challenging for investors, it’s also been challenging for advisors. In addition to the higher level of effort required to keep nervous and frustrated clients on the books, high volatility in client accounts makes it harder to be confident of fee-based revenue and therefore confident of a practice’s overall financial health.

A report released by Pershing suggests that while most wirehouses and independent broker-dealers recognize that their core advisors are aging and will soon need to be replaced, few have done much in the past three years to address the problem.

Facebook and Twitter are becoming increasingly important to wealth managers and their clients, but a new survey released by Advisors Trusted Advisor makes it clear that old-fashioned word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing tool for financial advisors and their firms.