Practice management

The Senate Banking Committee unanimously agreed to recommend the full Senate confirm Kara Stein and Michael Piwowar as Securities and Exchange Commission members and approve chairman Mary Jo White to serve a full term.

Raymond James Financial, Inc. has partnered with social media sales platform provider Hearsay Social to help its advisors connect with clients and expand their practices.

A new study shows that the current yield environment could leave retirees badly underfunded.

Are you concerned about information technology security? So is Dave Grant. Check out some strategies he is using to assuage his fears.

The need for advisors to tackle succession planning decisions now has garnered increasing attention and discussion in recent years. Yet, even as advisors tend to recognize the importance of taking action to prepare, many still have not gotten started.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat credited with conceiving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said confirmation of a director for the agency is both a major step and a call to vigilance.

The Senate Banking Committee will meet Thursday to vote on whether to recommend the Senate confirm two nominees to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

When we think about post-traumatic stress disorder, we typically envision combat, tornadoes, and hurricanes. But PTSD is not limited to life-threatening events. Events threatening financial security (and even career-security) can be very traumatic.

Kenneth R. Lench, the chief of the structured and new products unit at the SEC’s division of enforcement, is leaving at the end of the month.

Wealth management is “significantly behind” other industries in adopting emerging mobile technology to interact with clients, according to Darrin Courtney, research director for Boston-based CEB TowerGroup. How can advisors change this trend?

Private banking, trust and brokerage units have each enjoyed periods when they were the big guys on campus. But now no one group is more important than the other.

When Wells Fargo Advisors held a conference to discuss elder financial abuse, it seemed at times like nearly every one of the 200 people in attendance was personally acquainted with a family member or friend who has been victimized. But Danny Ludeman, the CEO of Wells Fargo Advisors, write that perhaps that’s not surprising, given the scope of the crime and the rate at which it’s growing.

Readers weigh in on HSBC’s decision to put its advisors on salary.

To help financial services firms adhere to corporate and regulatory standards when it comes to social media communciations, Actiance unveiled review and approval capabilities to its Socialite social-media management program.

Generating referrals is not a numbers game. Referral Coach Bill Cates says that it is better to get one great referral than a litany of names.

Global retail and retirement assets under management are set to cross the $70.4 trillion mark by the end of 2013, an increase of $20 trillion from 2008, according to new findings from Cerulli Associates.

Most advisors like to think they know a thing or two about marketing, but Dave Grant says he didn’t realized the impact his 3-year old would have had on building his business and its marketing strategy.

Can women trust you to be their advisor?

A Financial Industry Regulatory hearing panel has suspended former broker Anthony Grey for two years, fined him $30,000, and ordered him to disgorge $16,000 in ill-gotten gains for routing muni bond trades through his personal accounts before selling them, through his firm, to retail customers at excessive markups.

Bottom line: clients (and advisors) need to expect down periods. And, you need to be prepared to manage more emotions than money during your career as an advisor.