Practice management

After the landmark Dodd-Frank financial reform bill and continued calls for tighter scrutiny of the financial sector, 2012 brought a flurry of congressional hearings, public comments on rule proposals, and lobbying and public posturing by various stakeholders. Scores of new rules and regulations that could affect the advisory industry made their way through varying stages of development. But for all the noise this year, what actually changed?

President Obama, facing a budget stalemate with Republicans, urged leaders of both parties to assemble an interim bill to keep taxes from rising on middle- income Americans as they work on a more comprehensive plan.

Robert Khuzami, who led the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division’s pursuit of financial industry wrongdoing related to the subprime crisis, plans to step down as early as next month, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

President Obama is urging lawmakers to put together a package to avoid the fiscal cliff with the next 10 days.

"The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass," Boehner said in a statement after Republicans broke from a conference where leaders made a last-minute appeal for votes.

Ahead of two votes in the House of Representatives on Republican-backed spending and tax bills, Senate Democrats ripped into House Speaker John Boehner's so-called "Plan B," calling the proposals to avoid going over the fiscal cliff a "nonstarter" in the upper chamber and deepening the partisan impasse ahead of a year-end deadline to avert a series of automatic tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts.

ICE is smaller but more profitable. The combined company would operate globally, in trading of equities, futures, options, credit-default swaps, and interest-rate products as well as clearing.

TD Ameritrade Institutional has expanded the integration of leading advisor customer relationship management technologies (CRM) with its open access network, Veo.

Americans held $5 trillion in all employer-based DC retirement plans on September 30, of which $3.5 trillion was held in 401(k) plans, according to data from the Investment Company Institute.

One of the keys to attracting referrals is to be remarkable.

“Many banks are just going through the motions, tweeting about things that are irrelevant to their followers,” Ron Shevlin, an analyst with independent research firm Aite Group, writes in a recent report.

Speaker of the House John Boehner said Tuesday that House Republicans would introduce a bill to raise tax rates for millionaires as a “Plan B” in case his negotiations with President Obama on averting the fiscal cliff fail to produce an agreement.

Asset managers are largely using social media to promote their brands, according to the latest research from Cerulli Associates.

President Obama lowered his tax revenue demand by $200 billion and offered to start tax rate increases at $400,000 in income instead of $250,000, moving closer to a budget deal with House Speaker John Boehner.

More than 100 advisors descended on the Women Advisors Forum in Boston Tuesday to hear speakers from throughout the profession offer advice on finding new clients, managing a practice, intelligent technology use, meeting special sets of client needs and more.

“Go online or contact your Human Resources department now and request an increase in your salary deferral, beginning with your first paycheck in January,” advises Matthew Illian, a planner with Marotta Wealth Management in Charlottesville, Virginia. “The people there will appreciate the advance notice.”

Four successful, multi-million dollar female financial advisors shared their stories of elusive clients at the Women Advisors Forum in Boston on Monday.

The Financial Services Institute is calling on the leaders of a Senate committee to pass a resolution expressing the "sense of the Congress" that the current tax system includes valuable incentives that encourage Americans to save for retirement and should be preserved.

As the global economies continue to become more diverse and interlinked, so do the needs of wealthy and worldly clients.

The same things that make women great financial advisors also tend to hinder them in terms of their own career growth, argues recruiter Mindy Diamond. Here’s how to be smarter about your practice.