Research Magazine August 2008
Cover Story
What Has Your Wholesaler Done for You Lately?
As financial advisors abandon their traditional transactional-based business model for something more holistic, one key player has largely failed to keep up: the wholesaler. As Ray...
Features
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From Bismarck to Bush
On November 17, 1881, German Kaiser Wilhelm I issued an imperial decree stating that "those who are disabled from work by age and invalidity have...
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Portrait of a Rookie (Part III)
Up-and-at-'em at 5:30 in the morning for a pre-breakfast military-style work-out in the park: push-ups, weight-lifting, a two-mile run. Is boot camp any way for...
News
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So Many Choices!
It's easy to become giddy with the growing number of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and all the investment opportunities that they offer. Nevertheless, a new obstacle has...
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Leverage, Inverse Offerings Expand
Rydex Investments has launched eight new exchange-traded funds on the American Stock Exchange. The funds, known as RydexShares, will provide leveraged and inverse exposure to Select...
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GLD (Finally) Gets Options
After a long four-year wait, trading of call and put options on the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) has finally come to pass. The regulatory hurdles...
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Room to Improve
Every financial advisor comes to the business with a different mix of personal strengths and weaknesses. Top producers aren't necessarily worthier than those who are...
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Smaller Stocks Holding Up
This year, there haven't been many havens for stock investors, but two areas are holding their own: small- and mid-size company stocks. ETFs following mid- and...
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Benchmarking in Tough Times
Look at your calendar. We've already reached the half-way point of the year. How are your clients' portfolios doing? Right now is a good time...
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SPDRs Spins New Sector Funds
State Street Global has introduced 10 new international exchange-traded funds. The new set of funds provides exposure to international industry sectors. Each ETF is linked...
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Van Eck Targets Mideast
When it rains, it pours. And lately, it's been pouring Middle East-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Van Eck Global is the latest provider to introduce an...
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Deutsche Bank Launches Value-Focused ETNs
Deutsche Bank has announced it will issue ELEMENTS exchange-traded notes (ETNs) linked to Benjamin Graham Intelligent Value Indices. Benjamin Graham ELEMENTS ETNs are senior unsecured obligations...
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BGI, Upromise Team Up on 529s
Barclays Global Investors and Upromise Investments have introduced the iShares 529 Plan. It'll be the first 529 plan designed with portfolios that invest exclusively in iShares...
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The Oil 'Bubble'
West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil (WTI), as measured by the United States Oil Fund (USO) has doubled in the past 12 months. Investors and consumers,...
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Revisiting Financials
The noise surrounding the financial sector has calmed down a bit. That however, does not indicate that the worst is over. Advisors and investors alike...
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Murdoch's Global Dow Index
On August 4, Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, launched the Global Dow, an index with components are selected by the editors of...
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U.S. Equities Get a Thumbs-Down, as Money Market and Overseas Funds Get Thumbs-Up
The first half of 2008 has hit the world's developed markets (United States, Japan and Western Europe) hard, with more than $100 billion in outflows,...
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PIMCO's El-Erian Tells FAs, 'This Time It's Different!'
(Chicago) Unlike the presidential candidates, the opening-address speaker at the 2008 Morningstar Investor Conference -- held June 25-27 in Chicago -- is not trying to...
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T. Rowe's Rogers Shares 'An Investor's Perspective'
(Chicago) Brian Rogers, chairman and chief investment officer of Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price, gave the final keynote presentation during to the 2008 Morningstar Investment Conference...
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Pershing INSITE 2008 Event Showcases Greenspan, Trends
(Hollywood, Fla.) When former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan speaks, advisors listen. This truth was eagerly acknowledged by Frank La Salla, Pershing managing director who...
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Consultant Says: FAs Should Go Blue!
Consultant Says: FAs Should Go Blue!(Hollywood, Fla.) Roch Parayre of Wharton spoke during Pershing's INSITE 2008 on how advisors can benefit from the ideas in...
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UBS Gives Q2 Preview, Outlines Further Changes
UBS says it plans to announce its second quarter results that "are likely to be at or slightly below break-even," noting that positive contributions from...
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Morgan Stanley Shares Q2 Results
Morgan Stanley says income from continuing operations in the second quarter ended May 31, 2008, was $1 billion compared with $2.4 billion in the second...
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AIG Taps Jeff Auld to Head Two Firms
AIG Advisor Group says Jeffrey M. Auld is now president and CEO of AIG Financial Advisors and American General Securities. Auld succeeds James R. Cannon,...
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Kids' College vs. Parents' Retirement
If your clients are complaining about the increasing difficulty of both saving for their kids' education and putting funds away for retirement, pay attention. A...
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Covering the Costs of Long-Term Care
A recent survey by the Lincoln Retirement Institute (or LRI) points to a long-term care risk exposure among boomers. The results showed that many boomers...
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Study Finds Some Plans in Good Shape
There's good news for your clients enrolled in pension plans at the largest U.S. companies. According to a Mercer study, in 2007, the financial health of...
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Five Questions for the Retirement Advisor
Marilyn Littlejohn, CFP, branch manager, Raymond James & Associates Inc., St. Petersburg, Fla. 1. Which retirement issue has hit you or your clients out of left...
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Lifting Forecasts
Gold and other metals are in favor thanks to a variety of secular and seasonal factors that are supporting commodities in general, equity analysts say. --- Daniel...
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Q&A with Keith Styrcula
Last year structured products sales in the U.S. increased to $117 Billion. And while most sales of structured products have occurred in the institutional and...
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Meaning in Money
She's not a numbers person, unlike many financial advisors. What's fascinating instead to 24-year wirehouse veteran Susan McCarthy is the emotional relationship clients have with...
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A Rich Inheritance
Ethical wills, first popularized in the Middle Ages, are making a modern-day comeback -- linking the "soft" and "hard" sides of estate and financial planning. Leading...
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Investor Spending: Risk
A generic retirement planning process should first build a floor under the retiree's income and spending risks. In a second stage, it should create upside...
Voices/Columnists
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Hot Prospects
Author's Note: August 12 is a big day for me. Scribner will publish my new book, Hot Prospects: The Proven Prospecting System to Ramp Up...
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The Donut-Eaters
Back in the early 1800s, when I started my financial career as an advisor, we prospected for clients the old-fashioned way -- by knocking on...
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Free, But Not Cheap
Why do so many people live beyond their means? Or why do people plan to diet and exercise, but fail to do so? Or why...
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Passing the Baton
Most small-business owners don't have an exit strategy -- and that's just as true for financial advisory firms as it is for their business-owner clients....
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Wholesalers: The Whole Truth
What do financial advisors really want? (Ask yourself what you really want.) And how can they get it? To help answer these questions, CEG Worldwide...
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Oil's Not Well
The residential area around Columbia University is very quiet on summer afternoons. Some local restaurants don't bother to serve lunch, and empty tables at Metisse,...
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Japan: Closed for Remodeling
Japan is amazing. Its economy stagnated for nearly two decades even as the rest of the world experienced dynamic economic growth, a technology revolution and...
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