Practice management

We're all guilty of allowing little things to distract us from what we should be doing. But the more efficiently you work, the bigger the returns you will receive. Follow these 11 rules to keep time-eating distractions at bay.

Are you using one of these tried-and-true referral methods to reach new prospects?

Two scenarios plus a multi-step plan that enhances your ability to succeed in the competitive financial world.

Robert M. Jaffe has been ordered to pay $1.1 million plus interest to Turbo Investors LLC

Regulators and small bank advocates seem to be losing the psychological battle over the Dodd-Frank Act, despite recent efforts to calm bankers.

Wealthy investors apparently unnerved by rising oil prices and the potential for higher interest rates and inflation now say they are much less confident about the stock market and the broader economy than they were just one month ago.

A year into its existence, the size, knowledge and dedication of the SEC's special asset management enforcement unit is going to spell “trouble with a capital T’’ for fund managers of all stripes, according to experts at the final general session of the 2011 Investment Company Institute Mutual Funds and Investment Management Conference.

The investment professionals will work from Citi’s Philadelphia office, focusing on ultra high net worth individuals, foundations, endowments and private business owners.

Robert M. Jaffe has been ordered to pay $1.1 million plus interest to Turbo Investors LLC.

The Financial Planning Coalition has called on Congress to support the Securities and Exchange Commission in establishing a fiduciary standard of care for broker-dealers.

Advisors are essentially small business owners, whose passion for their profession can easily consume everything else in their lives.

For the estimated million-plus folks who turned 70 1/2 years old last year, time is running out to take their first required minimum distribution from their various 401(k) and IRA accounts without incurring stiff tax liabilities.

Ahmass L. Fakahany was awarded $1.2 million by a FINRA arbitration panel after he brought a claim seeking more than $70 million from his former employer.

Here is a rundown of five potential pitfalls in cost-basis reporting which Wolters Kluwer Financial Services says brokerage firms, mutual fund companies, transfer agents and even corporations should watch out for as the tax season for securities reporting peaks.

Eileen Rominger, in her first appearance as the SEC's director of investment management division before a gathering of members of the mutual fund industry’s largest trade group, said that compliance with existing and forthcoming rules as well as robust regulation of these is essential to achieving and maintaining the trust and confidence of investors.

The establishment of a fiduciary standard that applies to how broker-dealers should care for their customers is not likely to come until after the one-year anniversary date of passage of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act that required it.

Advisors must be good writers. Here's a blueprint for success.

Investors in externally managed and sub-advised accounts could save about $1 billion a year in commissions paid to brokerage firms by their fund managers. So says UAT, a Denver-based technology firm specializing in the externally managed and subadvised industry. Incumbent commission management firms disagree.

One in six of the 145 million tax returns that the IRS expects to be filed for the 2010 tax year will include a Schedule C for self-employed filers, and many of them will no doubt be subjected to an IRS audit.

The special inspector general for Tarp will wrap up his two-year-plus tour on Wednesday, and he has nothing good to say about Treasury's implementation of the $700 billion bailout.