Practice management

With Google's announcement of its agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings, the search giant has potentially turbocharged its mobile payment plans.

Breaking through the growth barrier is a concept that's all too familiar to most advisory firms at one point or another in their development. The principals have founded the business, then scratched and clawed to get it to the point of viability. But at some point, even though the firm may have gathered a respectable amount of assets, the growth just seems to plateau. Here are eight tips to help get your firm over the hump:

Hiring staff to help streamline processes and handle the workload can lead to huge growth for financial advisors who are willing to take the plunge, says Chad Olivier, founder of The Olivier Group, a financial advisory firm in Baton Rouge, La.

Donald Johnson, 57, was sentenced for engaging in insider trading on multiple occasions based on material, non-public information he obtained in his capacity as a Nasdaq executive. Johnson also was ordered to forfeit $755,066.

Since I’m such a big proponent of using free publicity versus paid advertising as a business growth strategy, advisors often ask me if it ever makes sense to advertise. In a word, yes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission Friday launched its whistleblower program, launching a Web page to collect “original information’’ about securities laws violations.

They're an elongated equivalent of a ticker tape. Instead of four-character symbols and another four characters of pricing information, they're 140 characters of insight and links to deeper information.

Ever wonder what one second of high-frequency trading actually looks like? Here's a video that slows down the flow of market data and transactions flowing through one second of trading. See if you can follow what's going on.

Rather than offer the complete lineup of a target-date series in their 401(k) plan, sponsors are selecting only those funds that fit the age and demographics of their employees. This could result in under-funded target-date funds that could put the entire lineup in jeopardy, according to a new report, “Trends in Date-Date Portfolios on Recordkeeper Platforms,” from Financial Research Corp.

Institutional traders trying to move large blocks of stock in the face of market swings are driving venues such as Liquidnet to new volume records.

In January, the GAO issued a study that took a pass on regulating the financial planning profession, saying it did not have enough information to form one. Perhaps they will think differently after the summer is over, after TD Ameritrade Institutional wraps up a high-level study on advisor oversight.

Maribeth Kuzmeski, president of Red Zone Marketing, suggests financial advisors should embrace social media to promote themselves and find creative, meaningful ways to differentiate yourself from competitors.

As the financial markets hit investors with gale-force market dips, most advisors are telling their clients to drop anchor. And, at least in the short term, most investors heeded that advice as the Dow Jones Industrial average closed up more than 400 points Tuesday, just one day after losing more than 600 points, the sixth-largest, single-day decline in history.

Bowing to concerns about the costs of compliance, the Securities and Exchange Commission is trying to figure out just how much broker-dealers, transfer agents and banks must spend to track down owners of unclaimed securities accounts before it issues a new rule.

BNY Mellon this week said it will expand its treasury services group's electronic billing and payment processing services to include notifications via SMS text messaging to clients' mobile devices.

The problem for many sole practitioners and small planning firms is that working with a PR firm in any way, shape or form is generally too expensive to even consider. This week, we'll talk about a more affordable option: Group Training and Empowerment Programs -- which can be a very attractive option if you can find the right group.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. said that it will not change any valuations of securities required as collateral for the activities of Fixed Income Clearing Corp. as a result of Standard & Poor's downgrade of its rating on U.S. government debt.

Even though the government reached an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, 54% of Americans surveyed said the debate over the debt ceiling has made them feel less confident in the economy, the RBC Consumer Outlook Index for August found.

Barack Obama has missed his chance to see a director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau take office within his first term as president.

CBOE Holdings said its net income jumped 32 percent, even as trading in futures and options declined 16 percent in the secnd quarter.