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If financial planners want to provide impartial advice to their clients, they should truly be fee-only, instead of charging additional fees on the assets they have under management. So says H. Jude Boudreaux, the founder of Upperline Financial Planning in New Orleans.

The Hartford is betting that enhancements to its variable annuity suite will pull it ahead of competitors in the race to offer investors secure retirement income options.

Investors' infatuation with both exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and dividend-paying stocks helped Global X Funds' new SuperDividend ETF fly out of the gates in its first trading day last week.

The trading capital of Connecticut is now all up in arms, it seems, because UBS is talking about moving out.

Tradeweb said it added high-yield bonds to its European credit trading platform. The addition of high-yield bonds was intended to help asset managers "to enhance portfolio returns,'' in a period of low interest rates.

Former New York Banking Superintendent Richard Neiman has joined PricewaterhouseCoopers as vice chairman of the firm's global financial services regulatory practice. Neiman was also a member of the Congressional panel overseeing the implementation of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

A new report from Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. suggests that financial advisers need to educate their clients better on the importance of managing their emotions as well as their spending and investing behavior during and close to retirement just as they did-presumably-when they were saving up for their golden years.

Investors and regulators aren't the only ones wanting to know how a fund will mitigate its operational risk.

Merger and acquisition activity has been in the summer doldrums … since Jan. 1. Expectations had been high that 2011 would bring some serious moving and shaking among community banks. But the murky economy and regulatory uncertainty have discouraged buyers, turning them skeptical and picky.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nonbank that banks love to hate -- and fear -- is at it again. The retailer next week will begin rolling out automated versions of its MoneyCenter offices, which provide a range of financial services to shoppers.

Gabriel Garcia, director at Pershing Advisor Solutions, a BNY Mellon company, spoke at the INSITE conference giving advice on how advisors can get more referrals from their existing client base.

As I write this, I’m attending Securities America’s annual conference. My team from Impact is here talking with advisors about how they can add multi-media to their websites, create custom magazines for their clients, learn how to work with the media, and add social media tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to their marketing plan.

The New England Patriots winning three Super Bowl trophies is not all about luck and talent. If businesses apply the same team principles, they too can have their share of winning seasons.

The stars in the world of socially responsible investing are companies like Pax World, Parnassus and Ariel, which have leveraged the model to gain billions of dollars of assets under management.

Securities America, the broker-dealer firm owned by Ameriprise Financial, may be closer to a sale amid word that its reps and advisors are being asked to sign loyalty pledges -- a common practice that often occurs when the sale of a company is being negotiated.

Life insurance sales through banks, which set records in 2010, are now trending downward sales fell 30% in the first quarter, according to research firm Kehrer-LIMRA.

CHICAGO -- Just last month BlackRock’s Bob Doll told a room full of almost 2,000 advisers at the IMCA Annual Conference in Las Vegas that he believes the U.S. will continue to outperform developing markets and outperform Europe and Japan. “Investors should be overweight the U.S.” he said.

On Friday, at the Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago the CEO of BlackRock, Laurence Fink, said US economic growth could be slashed 1% a year for the next ten years if the deficit is cut by $4 trillion as proposed.

Slowing economic growth abroad combined with the Eurozone debt crisis pushed commodities lower in May after months of strong, sustained gains.

Dallas-based Highland Funds' Long/Short Healthcare Fund this week received a five-star rating from Morningstar which ranks the mutual fund among the top 10% of funds in the healthcare category.