Practice management

Since financial advice is a trust-based business, PR should play an important part of every advisor’s marketing plan. Having a good number of media mentions that show your professional character and business philosophy can really make a difference in how people perceive you and your potential value to them.

In a world where the minute, second and even millisecond that you pull the trading trigger can materially affect the return you get, managers of mutual funds too often are slow to buy when prices are rising and too fast when prices are dropping.

As unemployment numbers remain markedly high, the number of high-net worth individuals in the U.S. continued to increase in 2010, according to Capgemini’s 2011 U.S. Metro Wealth Index.

The National Securities Clearing Corp. has developed a new automated service for clearing brokers to establish, monitor and update their relationships with broker-dealers for qualified special representative (QSR) and correspondent clearing transactions.

Schwab Advisor Services this week introduced a new software application called LaserApp that lets advisors automatically load new client data onto 80 different Schwab forms.

Employers are feeling confident about their financial futures and that means more new hires, fewer layoffs, and an increase in retirement benefits and reinstatements of certain benefits, according to the 12th Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey released on Tuesday.

While investors feel that some cautionary fences have gone up around the industry and some are more confident about working with financial advisors, the Dodd-Frank Act has not delivered substantial changes to the financial advisory industry since President Obama signed it into law almost a year ago.

Besides the standard questions about income, assets, debt, etc, what kind of questions do you ask to get to the core of your client's hopes and dreams? Do you ask them what scares them about retirement?

The incorporation of guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefits (GMWBs) into defined contribution plans may reduce the level of assets required for plan participants to achieve the same level of retirement income, according to Prudential Retirement.

A survey of more than a 1,000 Americans 55 and older found that three out of five still remain hopeful about the future and almost two-thirds say they would ideally like to remain productive and include some work in retirement.

With all the talk about Americans not saving enough for retirement, New York Life Insurance Company announced on Monday a new type of deferred income annuity that allows individuals to create a “personal pension” to ensure retirement income.

Morningstar has added sophisticated asset allocation and forecasting functionality to Morningstar Direct, its investment analysis platform for institutional investors.

The tech team at Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services has come up with a new way to help prevent independent financial advisors from enjoying their vacations: a new smartphone app that allows them to open client accounts and do electronic trading for clients from anywhere.

Financial advisors who position themselves well by be being frequently seen in the public eye -- either in print, on TV, on the radio or writing online columns likes this one -- can build the perception that they're professionals who can be trusted.

Working as both a financial planner and a business consultant allows Phil Dyer, founding principal of Dyer Financial Advisory in Towson, Md., to serve his clients’ many needs.

The new route will lower trading speeds between those two cities and also allow banks, hedge funds, brokers and other financial services institutions to execute trades faster with exchanges in Zurich, Milan, New York and Chicago that are also connected to the Level 3 network.

Many consumers don't know what near-field communication is, but the services the technology enables are becoming quite popular. That puts an onus on mobile payments projects that use NFC to move beyond disputes over revenue and other issues.

After months of complaints to Congress about overzealous examiners, frustrated community bankers took the matter one step further on Friday by pressing a House panel to pass legislation that would force regulators to be more lenient.

American workers lapsed into investing inertia after the market collapsed in 2008, but standing still actually benefited many and helped their workplace retirement plan balances rebound by 31% between 2007 and 2010, Vanguard said this week.

SIX Swiss Exchange and Liquidnet said Thursday they had launched a trading platform that will allow global financial institutions to draw on five previously untapped European markets in finding buyers or sellers.