Fee disclosures

Firms are spending millions to comply with a controversial rule that is facing a legal challenge while state regulators push their own stringent regulations.

With the industry facing ridicule for high fees and low returns, clients have pulled a net $33 billion from the industry in the first quarter, the most over a decade.

The holdings in these top-performers “are companies that will be replaced, from a performance standpoint, over the next decade,” an expert says.

“I do believe that clients sometimes get too caught up in expense ratios,” an expert says.

FSI aims for a pragmatic approach when advocating on behalf of more than 90 independent broker-dealers and 30,000 financial advisors, Deputy General Counsel Robin Traxler says in an episode of the Financial Planning podcast.

The manager may collect over $4 million per year for managing a separate portfolio of commercial mortgage-backed securities issued by government agencies.

Whether it’s the products they’re developing or the projects they’re leading, the following asset management executives are among the most talented.

Undisclosed payments from alt managers should have been explained to clients in Form ADV, the regulator says.

The 20 top-performers are largely comprised of low-cost tech offerings.

The move is part of a larger strategy to bring account minimums down for clients who either can't or don't want to buy entire shares of high-priced stocks.

The IBD advocacy group expects no letup in enforcement by the regulator — with wide ramifications across wealth management hanging in the balance.

The move expands the manager’s commission-free platform, which has included all mutual funds since 1977 and all ETFs since 2010.

Asset managers stand to gain from an SEC-approved ETF structure since “selection of securities is the intellectual property for which they are paid fees.”

Some 225 funds traded for the first time over the past 12 months, down for a second-straight year.

Investors are pulling money at an accelerated pace as high fees and mediocre returns send them searching for yield elsewhere.

Now, armed with data from the rule’s rollout in Europe, asset managers in the U.S. have a better sense of each analysts’ worth — fairly or not.

While these 20 dizzying changes will throw some for a loop, financial advisors and their clients grow more powerful each year.

Fund industry Darwinism should be seen as healthy and natural in a thriving — albeit brutal — market, an expert says.

The fact that it’s impossible to track the amount of revenue sharing kickbacks demonstrates the problem, says the research firm’s lead policy wonk.

The changes follow the firm’s recent move to cut some client fees on separately managed accounts.