Practice management

Robert W. Baird & Co. has hired veteran financial advisor Baron C. Becker from Morgan Stanley Wealth Management in Portland, Maine.

Most Americans, particularly women, are woefully underprepared for retirement, with four out of 10 women having less than $10,000 saved, and only 21 percent having more than $100,000 in all of their investment accounts, according to research from Mintel.

Charles Schwab has announced yet another product for companies to improve their business operations.

Advisor Impact, a client feedback consulting firm, and Focus Partners, an advisor coaching firm, announced today they are joining forces to offer Advisor Impact clients coaching in addition to its Client Audit Program.

Most Medicare enrollees will pay 5% more for Part B in 2013. Considering that the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment for next year will be 1.7%, advisors can see that seniors’ medical costs are rising faster than the overall inflation.

The financial planning world has a serious problem. There are not enough financial advisors being trained and coming through normal channels to replace all those advisors who want to retire and sell their practices. If you are a buyer, well things are about to get really good. There will be a lot, again, a lot of practices up for sale.

It is absolutely impossible for a client with a fundamental fear of the future to become a successful investor, or even to formulate a rational long-term financial plan.

Wells Fargo has extended its summer hiring spree with 24 new financial advisor hires managing a total of $2.2 billion in assets.

“After years of recommending tax deferral, I’m suggesting accelerating tax payments,” Dean Mioli, director of investment planning for the SEI Advisor Network, told Financial Planning. “I’m not advocating this for every taxpayer, but it can make sense in some cases.”

Treasuries fell, following a four- week gain, after President Barack Obama said he was confident the U.S. will avoid the automatic spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to occur at year-end.

Investors who have saved more than $250,000 towards retirement feel more confident and are more willing to take the risks of putting their money to work in the stock market than their peers with a smaller nest egg, according to a new survey from Wells Fargo.

The world today is filled with coaches of every type. So many, in fact, you may question what a coach really does (and if a financial advisor needs one.)

Young and up-and-coming planner Winnie Sun is a passionate advocate for the role that social media can play in attracting Generation Y clients. But recently a routine LinkedIn inquiry she made yielded a benefit that surprised even her: a huge client prospect who she thinks she never could have met otherwise

Financial advisors often handle getting their clients’ affairs in order in case they die, but when it comes to succession planning for their own practices, that is often another matter entirely.

President Obama met with congressional leaders at the White House on Friday to negotiate over the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the looming problem of the so-called “fiscal cliff,” with the leaders agreeing that the meeting had been constructive.

Three years ago, Shannon Ryan of Manhattan Beach, Calif., left a position training and overseeing advisors with Ameriprise to return to full-time planning herself. The veteran of a successful planning practice years earlier on the East Coast, Ryan realized that her neighbors in California knew her mainly as the mother to two young daughters.

Greenspan said, "If we get out of this with a moderate recession, I would say that the price is very cheap."

More than half (55%) of Americans age 53 – 65 say they plan to continue working full-time as long as their health permits, up from 51% last year.

Tom Hoenig, a FDIC board member, reiterated his doubts that too big to fail has been eliminated, and offered his prescriptions for strengthening the system.

More than a thousand financial planners from around the country descended on Chicago for the Schwab Impact conference. The event gave them a chance for them to gain market intelligence, schmooze with peers, shop for new technology, check out new investing products and learn a few smarter ways to run their business.