Wealth management

Level Four Group, a Plano, Texas, based advisory firm with close to $1 billion in assets under management has moved from Lincoln Financial to LPL in a bid to grow by using the LPL platform and name to increase its stable of advisors.

Beacon Pointe Wealth Advisors announced the addition of its third advisor partner, $130 million AUM RIA Wealth Management Network of Newport Beach, Calif. today. This marks the third deal in the last year and a half for national advisory partnership firm BPWA.

So, you are working in a wirehouse now, how does independence look for you if you launch your own RIA?

Just as the cobbler's children go without shoes, two-thirds of independent advisors ignore succession planning. Such advisors could fall into an “annuity trap,” watching the value of their business degrade as they near the exit from their practice.

LPL Financial has added well-known wealth management firm MACRO Consulting of Parisippany, N.J., with $650 million in AUM and five advisors, who left independent broker dealer SII Investments for its larger rival.

Compliance is an issue every advisory firm has to deal with, but is your firm adequately prepared to execute effective compliance strategies?

The election results, while no surprise, have pretty much left us where we were in terms of tax policy, according to Roger Harris, president of Padgett Business Services.

If there is a constant in the investment advisory landscape, it’s change. And few things are changing faster than the independent sphere.

Evercore Partners Inc., the advisory firm founded by Roger Altman, agreed to purchase Mt. Eden Investment Advisors LLC, a San Francisco-based wealth manager with $645 million in client assets.

As social media increasingly becomes the preferred medium of communication for clients, it is in the best interest of advisors to develop a successful blogging strategy to keep existing clients close (and prospective clients coming.)

While many finance firms have developed their own applications, technology expert Bill Winterberg analyzes and ranks at the top eight asset and investment manager apps for advisors.

Legacy Wealth Planning announced Wednesday that it hired Mark Elston and his team of financial advisors.

What are the top financial planning schools nationally? Check out this list to see where the next generation of advisors are coming from (and who the next generation of clients may be working with).

Which banks shelled out the most for this election? Among the big name firms, here's a list of the top five donors based on data compiled by opensecrets.org, a nonprofit watchdog group that follows campaign donations. Click through to see where Wall Street's money has gone:

Sometimes, in order to lock in the $5 million estate planning tax exemption, clients gift away their “excess” assets. While gifting is good, and even better if you can avoid taxes by doing it, some clients give away too much, and are no longer able to maintain their standard of living in retirement.

The regulatory overhaul put in place by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 has dramatically reshaped the compliance landscape for investment advisors, with more small firms moving to oversight at the state level, while many large, private fund advisors now find themselves under the purview of the SEC, according to a new survey of advisors.

While disasters like Hurricane Sandy take away so much and leave but a trail of havoc behind it, the resilience of the people across the nation refuse to be trampled. Within moments, resilient individuals would begin to offer aid to their less fortunate fellows. And yet during this time, it can also be quite confusing for planners to advise clients on the best places to donate money.

“Advisors have been told that it’s the name of the firm on the business card that’s important to clients,” he said, “so their clients won’t follow them if they go independent. We have found that it’s the advisor-client relationship that’s important, not necessarily the name of the firm.

The legal challenges raised by clients who are beginning to lose their cognitive acuity or are suffering from dementia-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, can be significant for advisors. Here are some of the top tips for advisors working with clients with dementia.

TD Ameritrade Institutional drew a record 441 breakaway brokers to its platform for independent registered investment advisors in fiscal 2012, a 27% increase from a year earlier.