Practice management

Marketing expert Marie Swift says the “Marketing Ideas, Rapid Fire” session at the recent Garrett Planning Network annual retreat yielded a bunch of winning marketing ideas for financial advisors. Which ones can you or your firm implement right now?

High-net-worth investors are focused on preserving wealth rather than taking short-term risks in today’s volatile markets.

What is there to do on LinkedIn everyday? As it turns out, there are several powerful free tools that can help advisors market their practices as well as help them search effectively for new clients. Financial Planning senior editor Donna Mitchell says that planners who aren’t taking advantage of these functions (remember: they’re free) probably should be.

Mercer’s U.S. outsourcing business has begun including retirement income from Financial Engines in its defined contribution platform. Financial Engines says its Financial Engines Income+ is the first retirement income solution designed specifically for 401(k) plans.

U.S. households held $10.7 trillion in retirement assets at the end of 2010, according to a pair of retirement industry analysts who culled information from the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds report and U.S. Census data. This is just above the previous high of $10.5 trillion reached in 2007, and a big climb from the $2.4 trillion loss in retirement assets in the crash of 2008, when these assets fell to $8.1 trillion.

Four of the world’s largest investment banks – Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and J.P. Morgan --- are now live on a new electronic margin call system called MarginSphere.

Financial planning and reporting technology provider Adaptive Planning has introduced its Fall 2011 and Winter 2012 Releases, which feature new reporting capabilities, SaaS and enterprise collaboration features.

Almost 30% of households with more than $5 million to invest are using four or more advisors.

UBS financial advisors take on 10 emerging entrepreneurs.

You may be overlooking one of the best PR strategies an advisor could employ.

Finding the happy medium when it comes to splitting assets in a divorce requires the skills of the savviest of advisors.

Financial planners across the globe are just as aware of the potential repercussions that Dodd-Frank Act implementation and other regulatory issues will have on the profession as their U.S. counterparts, the head of the Financial Planning Standards Board said during a media briefing Monday morning.

About a week ago, Prudential released preliminary survey results indicating that when shopping for retirement plans, consumers between the ages of 18 and 36 were more interested than those over age 45 in guaranteed income features. The company is leveraging these results with additional features, including security, to certain plans offered by Prudential Retirement.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has defined tweets as “static content” it is widely watch pilot test of Twitter and Linked In involving 600 of its 18,000 financial advisors. Here's a look at what you and your firm need to know to drive a successful social media plan.

The SEC is now requiring alternative investment fund managers to provide a lot more details on their operations.

The SEC has ordered FINRA to improve the way it handles documents submitted during SEC inspections. The order, issued Thursday as part of an administrative settlement between the two organizations, comes after the disclosure that the director of FINRA’s Kansas City Office in 2008 ordered the minutes of three meetings dating back to 2006 and 2007 to be altered hours before they were they were provided to the SEC’s Chicago Regional Office.

Vanguard has filed with the SEC to offer the Vanguard Target 2060 Retirement Fund for those currently 18 to 20 years old, and early next year will merge the Vanguard Target Retirement 2005 Fund and the Vanguard Target Retirement Income Fund, as their allocations have become nearly identical.

Financial advisors are constantly on the lookout for new and more engaging and effective ways to market their services to prospective clients. Here’s a compilation of all the latest and most effective marketing tips, techniques and first-hand accounts you and your firm will need to raise your profile and increase your assets under management.

A “network connectivity issue” involving a next-generation trading system from Nasdaq OMX Group took down the $1.2 trillion Australian Securities Exchange for four hours Thursday.

Social media evangelists argue that the popularity of the new medium reflects a profound shift in the way investors scout for financial advice, making online social channels too important for advisors to ignore.