Economy

There have been more advances in technology for independent advisors in the past decade than there were in the previous 30 years. And the speed of this change is accelerating even faster today, giving advisors more tools to provide even better service to an even larger group of clients.

In the ongoing consolidation of the independent B-D space, insurer AIG's acquisition of Woodbury Financial Services brings the smaller firm in from the cold where it has become increasingly challenging to survive without a larger parent company.

You can always just add an advisor to the mix, but Kristen Pruitt, vice president of business development at Investment Professionals Inc., makes sure the cultural fit is right-or else the whole thing can fail.

When relatives are your supervisors and employees a special set of problems arise.

American International Group will acquire the independent broker-dealer from the Hartford Financial Services Group.

LPL Financial reported second quarter net income of $39.5 million, down $6 million compared to $45.5 million in the same quarter of 2011. Net revenues for the second quarter of 2012 increased 1.5% to $907 million, from $894.0 million in the prior year period.

Merrill Lynch Wealth Management has snapped up a financial advisor duo with $789.5 million in client assets under management months after they joined Barclays Wealth Management.

UBS Wealth Management Americas reported $211 million in pre-tax profit for the second quarter on Tuesday, up 28% from the same quarter last year, as the division continued to grow its financial advisor headcount.

Wealth managers are still struggling to create a full-service family office practice on a mass scale primarily because most advisors still aren't taking the entire family into consideration. Here are some ideas that can help.

The Swiss financial services firm said it suffered $357 million of losses from "the gross mishandling of Facebook's market debut" by Nasdaq OMX Group and that it will "pursue compensation for the full extent of our losses."

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has scaled back its number of total regions to 12 from 16.

Morgan Stanley, trading at less than half of its liquidation value, could be worth as much as $32 a share in a breakup, said Michael Mayo, an analyst at CLSA Ltd.

Jefferies Group Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. led Wall Street’s largest securities firms in average compensation per employee at midyear, widening a lead over JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Did you ever wonder why the word "billion" seems to elicit a terrible feeling in your gut? Do you remember when a billion dollars seemed like so much money it was unattainable? Do you remember when a millionaire was considered really wealthy? Now, a millionaire is not rich and a billionaire must have done something evil to become one.

BlackRock Inc.’s Laurence D. Fink, who heads the world’s largest asset manager, said his firm needs to capture a larger share of the deposits that are going into U.S. equity exchange-traded funds.

Following a difficult second quarter, the financial services firm will push to expand its lending operations.

Two financial advisors, Matt Browning and Monica Bacon-Proctor, have been added to independent broker-dealer Securities America’s base of registered representatives.

State Street Corp., the third- largest custody bank, agreed to buy the hedge-fund administration unit of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to boost growth as second-quarter revenue fell amid declining global markets and record low interest rates.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the fifth- biggest U.S. bank by assets, reported second-quarter earnings that beat analysts’ estimates on higher asset-management revenue a gain from the firm’s own investments.

When LPL Financial sought to improve its highly successful Model Wealth Portfolio platform, its advisors made a couple of requests: make it easier for us to select securities and to rebalance our client portfolios.