Wealth Think

Like professional football players, most financial advisors maintain an external persona of confidence, but if advisors are honest with themselves, many insecurities –including avoiding contacting aggressive clients during market collapses, or fearing that they will look weak if they can’t think quickly on their feet when challenged by their clients—linger beneath the surface.

The process of switching to independence does not happen overnight. Here are 10 steps to consider when making the move to the RIA segment from Schwab Advisor Services.

Industry influencers and independent investment advisors congregated in Palm Beach. Fla., last week for TD Ameritrade's Elite Advisor and Fiduciary Leadership summits to discuss how to strengthen advisor practices and navigate a turbulent regulatory environment.

Sessions at the 25th annual Morningstar Investment Conference covered a range of topics from actively managed ETFs, closed-end funds and alternatives to strategies to boost retirement income and solutions to the “yield conundrum.” Here is a baker's dozen of the smartest things we heard at the conference.

The movement to integrate previously disconnected applications used on the advisor desktop grabs the “low hanging fruit” opportunity for efficiency – eliminating repeated manual entry of data, but Neal Ringquist says advisors are barely scratching the surface of opportunity.

The most common question from advisors about social media used to be “Should I bother?” Now that regulators and compliance departments have provided at least some guidance, the more common questions from advisors involve how to use social media effectively without it becoming a huge time vortex.

Following lunch with a prospect, Dave Grant turns to an abundance of tech tools to turn the referral into a client.

In an exclusive interview, Skip Schweiss, managing director of advisor advocacy at TD Ameritrade Institutional, spoke about the tensions, dangers and future outlook of the fiduciary standard being debated in Washington -- and how the decision might drastically alter the advisory landscape.

A Connecticut advisory firm has developed a new approach to help financial planners solve client problems more quickly and efficiently. The activity is aimed at strengthening internal communications across service units, exchanging institutional knowledge, supporting business strategy and day-to-day management initiatives, and developing personnel skills.

Why do some wealth management firms experience explosive growth while others plod along at a more leisurely pace? To answer this question, Fidelity recently invited senior executives from nine firms that manage $1 billion or more to join us for a full-day discussion of what’s driving growth.