Practice management

When managing investors’ financial lives through a major storm like Hurricane Irene, keeping in touch and relying on a network of offices was key to helping advisors and their clients pull through.

Although Hurricane Irene may have wreaked havoc on millions of households across the East Coast, the storm had little impact on core post-trade clearing and settlement activities.

Many financial advisors are able to successfully pitch their own story ideas, place their own bylined content with reputable media outlets and navigate the PR waters on their own without the help of a professional PR firm or marketing consultant. But if you want to generate more interviews and media success, you’ll want to steer clear of these harmful (and potentially fatal) rookie blunders.

Helping with clients with a wide variety of financial planning issues, including tax preparation, is a big part of the strategy at Vintage Financial Services of Ann Arbor, Mich. according to Frank Moore, the firm’s founder and chief investment officer.

The New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq Stock Market, Direct Edge and BATS Global Markets said they will open for business at 9:30 a.m. Monday, for normal operations.

There are a lot of technology nightmares that follow a merger, but untangling contracts for software and other systems is one of the biggest.

Hurricane Irene is expected to make landfall Saturday in coastal North Carolina and hit the turf that houses the data centers that make up Wall Street on Sunday.

Compliance professionals don’t think the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will lead to a significant increase in compliance spending this year and they expect more money will be allocated to technology rather than education and consulting, according to a new study conducted between March and April by National Regulatory Services (NRS).

Steve Jobs' resignation as Apple Computer's chief executive may prove a mixed bag -- but a critically important one -- for banks.

At focus11, LPL Financial's national conference held earlier this month, it was clear that social media was clearly more than just a casual "focus" for the 5,000-plus attendees. Along with several well attended sessions, LPL had a station on the exhibit floor dedicated to the topic that enjoyed constant advisor traffic.

The website of the Morningstar firm went down for an undisclosed period Tuesday, the same afternoon an earthquake rattled the East Coast from a site near Mineral, Virginia.

More than half of fee-based financial advisors plan to sell their businesses prior to retirement, according to Tiburon Strategic Advisors, in Tiburon, Calif. That means there is ample opportunity for other firms to quickly add scale through acquisitions. Here are six critical pieces of information every advisor or firm needs to know before making any deals.

Broker-dealers don’t have to track every message sent through social media -- only ones that relate to business purposes. And unscripted interactions? They can be reported after they occur.

The most highly attacked operating system in mobile computing is Android, from Google, according to a security technology unit of chipmaker Intel.

You’ve worked long and hard and now you’ve finally been quoted in the Wall Street Journal or had a bylined article published in the local newspaper. Perhaps you’ve just done a radio or television interview. Now what?

Women who are in the middle of a transition -- whether it be a divorce, the death of a spouse, or the inheritance of a large sum of money -- often need specialized financial advice, but many of them may not know where to go, says Kimberly Howard, founder and owner of KJH Financial Services in Needham, Mass.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the creation of an interim inspection program related to audits of brokers and dealers.

SS&C Technologies Holdings said it agreed to acquire an Irish supplier of administrative services for investment funds.

Almost three years after Bernard Madoff’s fraudulent investment scheme was discovered, the unprecedented crime still holds some key lessons for financial advisors, according to investigative journalist Diana B. Henriques.

In light of the recent market volatility, a new report from Fidelity Investments analyzing the performance of 401(k) balances between Oct. 1, 2008 and June 30, 2011 is quite telling -- giving a testimonial to the value of sticking with the stock market even amid the worst declines.