Investment Advisor May 2007
Cover Story
The Fifth Annual IA 25: 2007
When Mary Schapiro took the helm as CEO and chairman of the NASD last September, it was a moment of relative calm before the storm.
Features
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The Digital Wire
When Norm Boone installed Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) throughout his three financial advisory offices in 2005, the transition had some bumps. "The conversation was...
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Opening Day
Here's an experience lots of advisors can identify with: for an allocation to small cap, they find a small-cap fund that consistently outperforms in both...
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All Around the World
Lots of fathers take their kids to work. It makes sense to let them see what Dad does when he leaves the house in the...
Beginnings
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That's Not How I Read PPA
Savita Iyer's interpretation of portions of the Pension Protection Act (PPA) in the article on your Web site, "DOL Requires More Due Diligence for 401(k)...
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Asset Allocation, May 2007
To learn this month's recommended asset allocations of Investment Advisor's panel of distinguished economists and money managers, click here.
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Traditional Meets Alternative in the Form of 130/30 Funds
Traditional and alternative investment managers now find themselves competing in a new battleground that combines the (1.0) beta exposure and quantitative methodologies of traditional indexed...
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Safe, but Sound
Intermediate-term bonds are not very exciting, but they do deliver steady gains. They represent a conservative fixed income investment strategy--typically carrying an average maturity of...
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Catching up with...
The search for investments that consistently produce above-market returns, aren't correlated to the overall markets, and carry a relatively low minimum may have become a...
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New Courses for the College Conversation
We all know higher education is costly, but it turns out that there may be some hidden costs--and unintended and possibly illegal benefits going to...
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Victory for the FPA
Is it any wonder that this issue includes four stories about the FPA winning its lawsuit against the SEC over the so-called Merrill Lynch rule?...
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At FRIAG, Growth and Plans for More
Jack Callahan started his career selling IBM hardware to corporate customers. Now he's selling something more intangible, though no less essential, and to businesses of...
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CFP Board Is on Its Way to Washington
Feeling an urgency to assert itself more strongly among policymakers and regulators, the CFP Board is moving its business operations from Denver to Washington, D.C....
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Group Think
Lori Richards, director of the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE), announced April 16 the release of an online compliance tool, called the...
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Changes
ING announced that Randall Ciccati, president and CEO of PrimeVest Financial Services, replaced Valerie Brown as president of ING Advisors Network, effective April 1. PrimeVest...
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Upgrades
LaserFiche, the dominant player in the document management business, has launched a campaign to educate RIAs on the virtues of the virtual office, partly through...
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What Millionaires Value
It looks like there are a good number of millionaires who are in the market for financial advice. According to Fidelity Registered Investment Advisor Group's...
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Compassion, Knowledge, and Personalized Service
The Alzheimer's Association announced in mid-March that more than five million American's have Alzheimer's disease, a 10% increase from the last official tally five years...
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A Battle Won, not the War
It's hard not to celebrate the Financial Planning Association's big win over the SEC in a federal appellate court as an instance of David slaying...
Columns
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Are You Ready for Advanced Planning?
The results from a recent poll conducted by Fidelity's RIA group were both encouraging and challenging for investment advisors working with high-net-worth clients. Thirty percent...
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Big Is Beautiful
I can't help myself. After reading a series of commentaries in the trade press about the simple perfection of tiny practices, I debated whether to...
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We Win, Sort Of
Okay, so the FPA's lawsuit against the SEC was a win/win from the start. But it wasn't just a win/win, it was a WIN/win, and...
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Making the Right Choice
Clients often name a friend or relative as a trustee based on that person being "the responsible one." The friend or family member may even...
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Standing Out
I think we'd all like to be recognized for making singular contributions. Only a rare few ever win a Nobel or a Pulitzer Prize, but...
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Management Mayhem
I was born into a long line of entrepreneurs, so it was no surprise to anyone that I started my first business at age 14....
Conclusions
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Back to School
IBM's newly minted personal finance and education benefit program for its 127,000 employees, "IBM MoneySmart," heralds the beginning of the type of program retirement finance...
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They Need to Stay Flexible
When calculating the amount of income that a client will need in retirement the traditional recommendation is that it should be somewhere around 70% to...
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NEWS & PRODUCTS, May 2007
Fidelity Investments released in late March its seventh annual estimate of the lifetime healthcare costs that retirees will face, and the news is not good....
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Retirement Advisor to the Starz
Hemant P. Singh, founder of the New York-based independent financial advisory firm Private Wealth Management LLC, counts among his clients some of the key movers...
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Exemption Vacation
"To be, or not to be?" a fiduciary (with all apologies to Bill Shakespeare) is the question of the hour for broker/dealers. While nobody is...
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NEWS & PRODUCTS, May 2007
NAVA, the Association for Insured Retirement Solutions, announced that total VA sales for 2006 were $157.3 billion, representing an 18.2% increase from 2005's sales of...
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Swept Away?
The repercussions from Hurricane Katrina have not yet died down, and the effects may reach much farther than the need to rebuild. Insurance companies are on...
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Risk Management--for Yourself
In this industry, when you mention risk, the first thing that probably comes to mind is compliance. Increasing regulations and the resulting scrutiny requires advisors...
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For Tax Exempts, Big Tax Changes
As filing season winds down this month, tax practitioners (and advisors who work with practitioners on behalf of their clients) can breathe easier, but only...
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Not Your Grandfather's Bonds
As droves of Americans get ready to ride the retirement wave, the preservation of their principal and the creation of a safe and secure income...
Sidebar Stories
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What's VoIP, Anyway?
VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, allows people to make telephone calls by breaking voice data into digital packets which can be sent over the...
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VoIP by the Numbers
Vonage www.vonage.com - 866-243-4357 Pricing: Starts at $40 for limited minutes for one line Number of Business Users: Up to six lines Perqs: Call hunting, with a call rolling...
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About the Manager
Chuck Akre is portfolio manager of the FBR Small Cap Fund, and founded his firm, Akre Capital Management (ACM), in 1989. He currently manages about...
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Inspire Referrals at a Client Review
Byron Sabol, a marketing and client service consultant in Windermere, Florida, suggests that good referrals can come out of an account review process that helps...
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Responsibilities of a Trustee
In general, a trustee will: Interpret the terms of the trust Hold the trust property Invest the assets Distribute the trust's income and/or principal to...
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Beyond Investing
Affluent clients have a variety of concerns beyond pure investing that they want their advisors to address. Prince & Associates discovered in their surveys of...
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Behind the Numbers, with Gail Dudack
The Principal of the Dudack Research Group believes that equities are presently the best valued asset. "Supporting this view is the fact that the trailing...
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The Buzz
The following quotes of note were made by IRS officials and tax professionals on recent Tax Talk Today webcasts. "They have taken all of the penalties...
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Learn, and Buy
As a business owner, you should familiarize yourself with the coverage these types of business insurance cover, and consider buying for your firm: Commercial...
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What McCarran-Ferguson Does
The McCarran-Ferguson Act, passed in 1945, offers a number of benefits to the insurance industry that it would otherwise not possess due to federal antitrust...
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The Street's Record Yea
The fourth quarter of 2006 closed a record-breaking year for the U.S. securities industry, according to a report from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets...
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About the Manager
ROBERT S. LEVITT Founder and Chief Investment Officer Levitt Capital Management, LLC 101 N. Federal Highway, Suite 700 Boca Raton, Florida 33432 Phone: 561-893-9901 Web site: www.lcmadvisors.com Additional office: 12/14 Rond-Point des Champs-Elys?(C)es Paris,...
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Advising Individuals, Not Institutions
One of the areas where Robert Levitt feels that the industry in general may have taken a wrong turn is in managing money for individuals...
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10 Reasons Why Big is Beautiful
1. Achieve growth in profitability and personal income, thereby providing the financial resources to invest in technology, people, and a superior client service experience. 2. Gain...
Web Extras
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The Semifinalists
Following suggestions from our regular contributors, nominations from within the industry, and the editorial staff's own personal submissions, this is the list of semifinalists from...
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Five Years of Excellence
The IA 25 marks its fifth anniversary in 2007, and each year it gets harder to limit the number of influential people to just 25....
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Bill Gross on the Housing Crisis
In an April essay discussing the housing market and the subprime lending issue, Bill Gross, manager of the $102 billion PIMCO Total Return Fund, discusses...
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The U.S. Court of Appeals Decision
Download a PDF of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's ruling.
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The Original SEC Rule
Download a copy of the Security and Exchange Commission's original decision on the broker/dealer exemption rule exempting brokers from regulation as an investment advisor...
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Event Spotlight
Think Retirement Income
October 10-11, 2013
Hyatt Regency, Boston, MA
The Retirement Income Symposium has a fresh, new look…welcome to the new and improved RIA Think Retirement Conference. We’re offering the same top-notch educational and networking opportunities to all RIAs, while still paying special attention to the challenges, and opportunities, of offering retirement incomes advice.
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