Research Magazine October 2009

The Compensation Conversation

By Ellen Uzelac

When it comes to compensation, most advisors will be delighted to put 2009 in the rear view. After all, industry experts are predicting that...

High-End Service

By Jane Wollman Rusoff

Opus Group at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney; San Francisco; AUM: $4 billion. Grant W. Lee, DIRECTOR of WEALTH MANAGEMENT, SENIOR INSTITUTIONAL CONSULTANT, CORPORATE CLIENT GROUP DIRECTOR. Tony daRoza,...

Early Adopter

By Ellen Uzelac

It's not an overstatement to say that Kip Gregory is ahead of the technology curve. In 1984, he helped build out CompuMall, one of the...

High Hopes and Altered Genes

By Kenneth Silber, Research

Biotech has long been a high-risk, high-reward industry. It is an industry in which numerous firms, including many small-caps and start-ups, intensively research possible...

The Fire Next Time

By Robert Tyndall

It's been two years since the stock market fell off a cliff in a rapid and frightening descent, losing more than 52 percent in...

Leveraged, Short ETFs Under Attack

By Staff Writer

The first iteration of leveraged and short ETFs was introduced in 2006. And from that moment, these particular ETFs have captured the fancy of investors...

Vanguard Eyes More Bond Indexes

By Staff Writer

Vanguard has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for seven new bond index funds and ETFs. The new offerings will...

Claymore Gets Acquired

By Staff Writer

Guggenheim Partners and Claymore Group announced they have entered into a merger agreement. As part of the transaction, Claymore Group and its associated entities including...

Natural Gas ETF Hits a Wall

By Staff Writer

Exchange-traded funds touted as a convenient way to obtain market exposure have now become an inconvenient headache. At the center of the chaos is the U.S....

Van Eck Ventures into Vietnam

By Staff Writer

Van Eck Associates has just launched the Market Vectors Vietnam ETF (VNM). The fund is benchmarked to the Market Vectors Vietnam Index, which is comprised...

Fund Groups 'Regaining Lost Ground'

By Janet Levaux, AdvisorOne

Through August 31, 2009, more than $226 billion flowed into U.S. open-end funds, according to the latest data compiled by Morningstar. "Fund firms are close...

Roth Conversion in 2010

By Janet Levaux, AdvisorOne

On January 1, 2010, nearly $1.4 trillion of retirement assets will become eligible to be converted to a Roth IRA. The Tax Increase Prevention...

Reading Between the Labor Dept.'s Lines

By Janet Levaux, AdvisorOne

Phyllis Borzi, the new assistant secretary of labor and head of the Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) gave her first press interview...

Wells Fargo Doubles Recruiting; Starts a New Ad Campaign

By Janet Levaux, AdvisorOne

Wells Fargo Advisors Recruited 545 veteran financial advisors in the first eight months of 2008 and has nearly doubled that figure in the same period...

McCann, BofA in Legal Dispute

By Janet Levaux, AdvisorOne

Lawyers for Bank of America and former Merrill Lynch & Co brokerage chief Robert McCann have reportedly been in talks to resolve his lawsuit...

Gorman Tapped as Morgan Stanley CEO

By Janet Levaux, AdvisorOne

Morgan Stanley's Board of Directors has announced that Co-President James P. Gorman will become the firm's CEO, effective January 1, 2010, while Chairman and CEO...

Citi to Sell Smith Barney Stake

By Janet Levaux, AdvisorOne

Investors Capital Finding Momentum

By Janet Levaux, AdvisorOne

Investors Capital executives and advisors say they are well positioned for growth, the main theme of the broker-dealer's 13th annual convention held in Boston in...

$800 Billion to Move, According to Cerulli

By Janet Levaux, AdvisorOne

Wirehouses are set to lose the most clients, while RIAs and dually registered advisors will be the greatest recipients, according to the research firm's latest...

Annuity Analytics: How Risky is Longevity?

By Moshe A. Milevsky

In the practice of retirement income planning, financial advisors routinely toss around survival probabilities for clients -- "there's a 10 percent chance you'll live to...

Retirement Income Reporter: Building Trust

By Francois Gadenne

The Harris Poll organization has a June 2009 survey showing that just one quarter of Americans say banks are honest and trustworthy. Only 13 percent...

Tweets Explained

By Bill Good

For some months, I've been taking a close look at the social networking sites to learn enough to advise my clients how to control...

Financial Reality TV

By Bill Miller

Halfway through my second bag of Orville Redenbacher, my remote control and I come to the conclusion: There are reality TV shows for everyone except...

More Best Practices

By Patricia J. Abram

Last month's column began our look at the best practices of elite financial advisors, as a valuable model for adopting new and better ways of...

Latin Lessons

By Alexei Bayer

Who: Riordan Roett, Sarita and Don Johnston Professor and Director of Western Hemisphere Studies, Johns Hopkins University, SAIS Where: Occidental, 1475 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C.,...

Prepare for Inflation

By Alexei Bayer

Debt can be a tricky thing. As everyone who ever held a margin account knows, when prices of shares in your portfolio go up, the ability...

Powering Up

By Janet Levaux, AdvisorOne

A select number of companies in the energy sector are getting the attention of equity analysts thanks to their access to resources and...

Positive Pipelines

By Janet Levaux, AdvisorOne

The U.S. water and wastewater sector is characterized by three major features: (1) it is municipally-dominated, (2) extremely fragmented and (3) its infrastructure is in...