Investment Advisor May 2010
Cover Story
Thirty for Thirty
We present for your consideration 30 individuals who over the past 30 years--the period in which Investment Advisor has been serving independent and independent-minded advisors--have...
Features
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Carpet Balming
Think of the world of financial services as a large, somewhat dysfunctional family with competing forces typified by the two eldest brothers in the family....
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The Up Side of Fear and Greed
Retail investors buy and sell securities for various reasons, many of which are based on either fear or greed, and that can creat inefficiencies that...
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Silver Lining
Anxiety prevails among fixed income managers over the prospects of rising interest rates and what it will do to their product's reputation as a "safe"...
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Simple, Not Simplistic
Tom Giachetti is no stranger to Investment Advisor readers, nor to many advisors who have heard this securities lawyer extraordinaire speak at all manner of...
Beginnings
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Asset Allocation
An economic recovery is at last underway in Gail Dudack's estimation, as evidenced by what she calls the first signs of job creation. "That's always...
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The ETF Advisor: Treasury ETFs Offer Measure of Safety, but Still Carry Risks
When the ups and downs of the stock market get to be too much, when you can't decide whether China or Brazil is a better...
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Healthcare Reform and You
With President Barack Obama's historic health reform legislation, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, H.R. 4872, signed into law March 23, advisors...
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Tax Implications
Taxes are, for a change, probably the easiest area to consider when assessing the implications of healthcare reform for advisors and their clients. To be...
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For Small Businesses, Confusion and Added Costs
Of all the debate about healthcare reform, the effect on small businesses seems to have generated the most confusion. Some small business owners appear pleased...
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What a Reinvigorated SEC Will Mean for You
Reports of the demise of the Securities and Exchange Commission were premature. In the wake of the Madoff scandal, some questioned whether the SEC would...
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At the Pinnacle
While various studies performed throughout the years have shown that a large portion of the female population is the breadwinner in their families, that women...
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Catching Up With...
When we last reported on a conversation with Jeff Montgomery in these pages, the former NFP Securities honcho had recently become CEO of Al Frank...
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What It Will Cost
As President Obama signed healthcare reform legislation on March 23, he probably would have wanted the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, sitting...
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Editor's Note: Another Modest Proposal
Harry Markopolos, one of our 30 most influential people in the independent advice business over the past 30 years that Investment Advisor has been published...
Columns
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The Affluentialist: Raising Responsible Children
The toys of the children in affluent families are of a different scale. The two toddlers of one family will likely inherit their Dad's passion...
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The Green Advisor: Ideas from a Green Investor
As has been mentioned before in this space, green investing has much in common with what is now commonly known as ESG (for environmental, social,...
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Formulas for Success: The Dispensable Leader
"The graveyards are full of indispensable men."--General Charles DeGaulle At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, we are an industry facing a crisis of leadership....
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Clark at Large: Hope and Change
I know this is risky, but it's all a part of the high-wire timing act we call financial journalism, especially the monthly print variety: It...
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The Psychology of Advice: Positively Irrational
One of the most difficult parts of an advisor's practice must be dealing with clients' irrational ideas and actions. As a psychotherapist who happens to...
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The Fast Track: A Marriage of Inconvenience
One of my advisor clients had a problem. Her part-time accountant was very diligent, rigidly paying all the firm's bills on time, and everyone in...
Conclusions
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Retirement Planning: ING Back Into Retirement
ING Financial Solutions, that unit of ING's U.S. operations formed by the merger of the Dutch-based company's U.S. annuity and rollover businesses in 2009, has...
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The Hartford Has Big Plans for Wealth Management and RIAs
Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. said April 1 that it would reorganize itself into insurance, annuity, and wealth management businesses. The new wealth management division...
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Retirement News
Recent research by Vanguard covering the stock market downturn from September 2007 to December 2009, and the ensuing recovery, confirms earlier findings that retirement plan...
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Settlements On Rise
The total value and number of securities class action settlements increased in 2009 to $3.8 billion, a jump of more than 35% from 2008, according...
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Broker/Dealer News
Fidelity's clearing arm for broker/dealers, National Financial, announced several new online service technology tools that National Financial says will allow brokers and advisors to spend...
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Broker/Dealer Briefing: Schapiro Speaks on Fiduciary, 12b-1s
Investment Advisor Washington Bureau Chief Melanie Waddell conducted another of her exclusive interviews with Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro on April 8 by...
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Easy Rider Redux
Long-term care insurance is complicated. It's also a hard topic to address with clients who often don't want to think about the possibility that they...
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And Another Thing. . .
Genworth Financial, in addition to launching Total Living Coverage Annuity, its hybrid annuity/LTC policy, has also brought out another annuity that acts more or less...
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The Technology Coach: Don't Get Lost in the Cloud
Cloud computing has attracted a significant amount of attention in the advisor community. Understandably so, since it offers plenty of advantages for businesspeople who have...
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The High-Performance Coach: Building Loyal Client Advocates
In this month's column, we will introduce the concept of Loyal Client Advocates. One of our coaching observations is that high-performing advisors reject the general...
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Soapbox: Debunking the Myths of Leveraged ETFs
As a relatively new and unique investment tool, leveraged exchange traded funds are often misunderstood. These funds have experienced such tremendous growth in recent years...
Sidebar Stories
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A Serious Man
Before a room of people or in an intimate dinner or an interview with a journalist, Tom Giachetti is never at a loss for words....
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Of Morale and Leverage
One of the major problems with hiring your spouse into your practice may not be you or your spouse, but your existing staff. How are...
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Smart Choice
The originators of the Save More Tomorrow (SMarT) system--Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago and Shlomo Benartzi of UCLA--describe SMarT as a "choice architecture...
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More Integration Opportunities? Yes, Maybe . . .
Sometimes, it is assumed that a cloud-based system will provide more data integration opportunities than a locally installed application. But that is a faulty assumption,...
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Case Study: Michael and Tina Tannery
Michael and Tina Tannery, of Tannery Wealth in Richardson, Texas, are one of the top-performing teams within LPL. After careers in the wirehouses, the two...
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Case Study: Don Hurd
Don Hurd (not his real name) is a top-performing advisor who works for a wirehouse, and is based in a large metropolitan area in the...
Web Extras
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30 for 30 Interviews: John Bogle
Investment Advisor is celebrating its 30th anniversary. How would you say the mutual fund business has changed in that time period? Mutual funds used to...
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30 for 30 Interviews: Mary Schapiro
Are you waiting to see the outcome of financial services reform before you make a final determination on how to proceed with harmonizing the rules...
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30 for 30 Interviews: Mark Tibergien
What's the biggest change you've seen in the advisory profession over the last 30 years? I think that one of the biggest changes that has occurred...
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30 for 30 Interviews: Harry Markopolos
You've been watching the SEC for years. How do you think the SEC is doing now? Have the changes to staff and structure that SEC...
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30 for 30 Interviews: Ken Fisher
How big is Fisher Investments these days? Headcount is 1,028, AUM is $39 billion and total number of clients is 24,189. Do you anticipate growth to...
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