Prepare your clients’ heirs to receive their inheritance; you’ll have a better chance of becoming THEIR financial advisor instead of just being mom and dad’s. Here are two facts that should scare any financial advisor: First, over 90 percent of heirs change advisors promptly upon receiving their inheritance. Second, 70 percent of those heir families lose their assets and family cohesion after receiving their inheritance. Read the rest of this entry »
Archive for the ‘Wealth Management’ Category
Merrill’s Revamped Discount Brokerage, Good for Merrill but Bad for FAs?
Our cover story for August, Don’t Talk to Chuck: With its revamped discount trading platform, Merrill has, in effect declared open warfare on Chuck Schwab and its discount peers,” is starting to draw feedback. The article has been among our most viewed articles on our website since we posted it two weeks ago. And my phone is ringing. Read the rest of this entry »
How Are Your Picks Doing? Compare to The Inertia Benchmark
There are all kinds of benchmarks to grade your investment performance. Try this one: Compare how you did versus doing nothing, the inertia benchmark. http://bit.ly/dkU81m
Bush Tax Cuts Calculator Shows How Expiration Would Affect Clients
Today, the Tax Foundation posted a “Bush Tax Cuts” calculator to show how the expiration of Bush’s tax cuts would hit individual taxpayers. The calculator can be found on www.MyTaxBurden.org and it allows taxpayers to compare 2011 income tax liability if Bush tax cuts expire or are extended. Read the rest of this entry »
Advisors Say Quality of Asset Manager Websites Affects Product Sales
Surprise! Financial advisors use the web now more than ever and the quality of an asset manager’s website matters! The better the manager’s site, the more assets it can gather. Read the rest of this entry »
Outliving Your Money Feared More Than Death
For some reason, this doesn’t surprise me.
MINNEAPOLIS – June 17, 2010 – More than 90 percent of Baby Boomers feel the United States is facing a retirement crisis, yet most have a limited understanding of how much money they’ll need and fear they’ll outlive their income according to a new survey from Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz Life). Read the rest of this entry »
Was the Last Decade Really Lost?
Some pundits are saying that the last decade was lost because the S&P 500 declined. But not all investments performed poorly. Of the 55 fund categories tracked by Morningstar, 51 made money, including many that delivered double-digit returns. By diversifying broadly, investors could have obtained decent results. What are the lessons of the past decade? Roger Ibbotson argues that the case for owning stocks is still compelling. Even though bonds outdid stocks for, what, about 40 years, the returns of stocks are still worthwhile. But some advisors say that the lesson to be drawn is that investors need to take on less risk. Read the rest of this entry »
Registered Rep. Partners with Reuters Insider, the YouTube of Finance
Thomson Reuters, the global financial information company, is launching Reuters Insider, a narrow-cast video platform aimed at financial professionals of all kinds, including retail financial advisors (a.k.a. wealth managers). We here at Registered Rep. have partnered with Reuters, a deal in which I am interviewed by Reuters journalist Rhonda Schaffler to comment on and analyze topics of importance that affect the working lives of retail financial advisors. Read the rest of this entry »
Art Still Fetching Big Bucks, But Will Tax Rules Nix Charitable Giving?
It boggles my mind when less important art work goes for big bucks. The Swann Galleries in early March annonced that it fetched $84,000 for a pencil drawing by Amedeo Modigliani (actually one of my favorite 20th century artists). Okay, Modigliani (pictured at right) was great, and I’d probably pay good money for one of his empty absinthe bottles. But eighty-four grand for a pencil drawing? Okay, fine, but what about prints, otherwise known as posters? And will buyers be turned off in the future if tax rules on gifting of art change? Read the rest of this entry »
The Citibank’s Great Bank Brokerage Makeover, “We’re All Fee-based FAs Now”
Leading our April print issue for April and posted on our website is a story about how the new head of (what’s left) of Citigroup’s bank brokerage unit is undergoing a comprehensive makeover. Our reporting revealed that Debby McWhinney, a long-time financial services executive with long stints at BoA and Schwab, where she headed up its RIA business, intends to push Citibank’s bank brokers into RIA-land, to wit, punish commissions and encourage fee-only advisory practices. She is also creating a network of outside RIAs to refer Citi bank clients to. The Citi FAs (the ones that didn’t go into the Morgan Stanley joint venture) are not happy. Good idea? Or bad? Let me know, am canvassing for opinions. Read the rest of this entry »
