Practice management

The Baby Boomer retirement flood is the gift that keeps giving and financial advisors are seeing huge growth opportunities to counsel small business clients on exit planning strategies as they close in on their golden years.

Four successful women advisors focus on what they could have done better and the lessons they learned from their mistakes.

The lack of women on corporate boards and in executive suites in the United States is hampering profitability, and investors and investment advisors can do something about it, according to Joe Keefe, President and Chief Executive of Pax World Management and Pax World Funds.

Women are so dedicated to nurturing clients, they often forget to take the time to think about where they are in their careers.

According to a Schwab study, 45% of independent advisors are bullish about the market in the six months. However, a second, first-time survey of 504 high-net-worth investors found that only 29% are bullish about the market.

LinkedIn is the hands-down preferred mode of social networking for advisors, because it offers plenty of resources to gather client leads and personal privacy.

To become the industry’s SRO, FINRA estimates it will cost roughly 15 times less in start-up costs than estimates in a study commissioned by the Financial Planning Coalition, which includes CFP Board, FPA and NAPFA.

Financial advisors meeting with female clients need to know their silence does not mean they do not understand, and nodding does not mean they agree.

“I think this would absolutely impact all of our small business owners,” said Karen Nystrom, manager of public policy and advocacy with NAPFA. “We agree that more oversight is needed but where we differ is the most cost effective way to get there.”

The Investment Adviser Oversight Act of 2012 is meant to address what proponents say is a serious gap in investor protection. Sure enough, industry groups from all side are weighing in on whether the idea will help or hinder the profession.

When the Women Advisors Forum conference kicks off in New York Thursday, it will feature a popular panel featuring four female financial advisors who have risen through the ranks, gathered substantial assets and learned key lessons along the way.

In a move expected to draw the ire of some advisors, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala) introduced legislation in the house Wednesday that could clear the way for FINRA to become the self-regulatory organization for retail investment advisors.

Ignore the rhetoric from both sides on the issue. The odds that the business lending bill will be enacted this year are significantly slimmer than they were just last week.

RBC Wealth Management, a division of the Royal Bank of Canada , said on Tuesday it hired four veteran Morgan Stanley Smith Barney brokers in Texas, including a top Morgan Stanley bond salesman.

Six teams officially joined HighTower in the first quarter, all transitioning from wirehouse firms, while an undisclosed number of others are now in the transition process. In 2011, a total of nine teams transitioned to HighTower.

“SIFMA’s views are not supportable and would make a mockery of the fiduciary standard,” according to The Institute for the Fiduciary Standard in a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The regulator cited the Egan-Jones Ratings Company and its president Sean Egan for “material misrepresentations and omissions” in its 2008 application to become a national ratings agency.

Ameriprise Financial has bolstered its adviser base in Florida and Indiana with two veteran advisers from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Fifth Third Securities.

Federico R. Buenrostro, former CEO of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, and a friend fabricated documents given to New York-based private equity firm Apollo Global Management, costing the asset manager $20 million in “fees it would not otherwise have paid,’’ the federal regulator said.

You’re never too young to start planning for your retirement and most financial planners bemoan the fact that clients often wait too long to start saving for their golden years. Here’s an interactive slide show counting down five things 20-somethings can do today to ensure they have the means to retire in the style when the time comes.