Trader Talk

Lindsay DesLauriers was on a roll early last year. Her family had recently bought back the Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont, which her father had originally developed in the 60s. The business was on a “really positive growth trajectory,” she said. Then the pandemic hit. Vermont’s shutdown in March 2020 came at a terrible moment

Several of the world’s most prominent billionaires paid minimal to no federal income tax in some years, ProPublica reported on Tuesday, citing confidential IRS records it had reviewed. The world’s wealthiest individual, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, did not pay any federal income tax in 2007 and 2011. Tesla CEO Elon Musk managed to do the

Steward Partners, an independent firm, announced its plans to transition its 173 advisors to Raymond James’ RIA and Custody Services as the hybrid advisory firm moves to work with multiple custodians. Regulatory approvals are pending, according to a statement issued in late May. Jim Gold, Steward Partners’ CEO, left Morgan Stanley in 2013 and registered

After adding its largest team yet exiting the independent channel, Janney Montgomery Scott is ahead of its recruited client assets from each of the previous two years. Financial advisors Joseph Chornyak Sr., Robert Mauk and Joseph Chornyak Jr. of Chornyak & Associates left Commonwealth Financial Network to join Janney in Columbus, Ohio, the regional firm

When it comes to retirement, a lot of human beings look for tricks and tips, but we should be honest with our clients approaching and entering retirement: there are really no shortcuts. In fact, thinking about retirement is a deeply intense process. Retirement, especially in 2021, means very different things to different people. To that

When most people think of ESG investing, they think of climate change — portfolios that avoid companies that harm the environment, or that invest in companies that protect the environment. “When you add gender and diversity as a screen to your clients’ investments, you not only offer a chance to invest in companies that research

Many investors are intrigued now by the traditionally boring world of U.S. savings bonds because of the buzz about the virtues of savings bonds that offer inflation protection. While a general savings bond just accrues interest at a fixed rate, part of the interest on I bonds, as they are known, is based on a

Saving for retirement in tax-preferenced retirement accounts is often one of the primary objectives for the clients of advisors, where most contributions made to a taxpayer’s retirement accounts are either deductible contributions to a traditional retirement account (IRA, 401(k), 403(b), or similar), or nondeductible (after-tax) contributions made to a Roth-style account (Roth IRA, Roth 401(k),

An ex-LPL Financial advisor accused of misappropriating millions from clients faces up to 7 ½ years in prison if a plea deal with prosecutors receives approval in federal court. James K. Couture steered $2.9 million from at least seven clients he defrauded between 2009 and 2020 by convincing them to place their assets in a

LPL Financial joins the Fortune 500, Bob Doll starts at Crossmark Global Investments as chief investment officer, and Ohio and Oregon raffle off 529 college scholarships for teen residents who get COVID vaccines. Here’s more on those stories, plus other recruiting moves and quick takes from the week in financial advice. Scroll down to see

The surge in early retirements spurred by the pandemic is increasing inequality among baby boomers in the U.S., with older Black workers without a college degree more likely to be forced to exit the labor market prematurely, a study showed. At least 1.7 million older workers retired early because of the pandemic crisis, according to

It’s a wealth management paradox. Women currently control $10 trillion of wealth in the U.S., an amount expected to triple by the end of the decade. Why, then, does the advisory industry tend to treat them as if they can’t possibly understand how to handle the money they’ve earned or inherited? Granted, in studies, reports

A barred former Cetera Financial Group advisor fired after an earlier arrest on stalking charges received a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to fraud. David A. Rockwell, 45, must forfeit more than $1 million in restitution after fraudulently obtaining a $700,000 line of credit under two clients’ names without their knowledge or permission and

A financial advisor who admitted to defrauding his own parents, a cognitively disabled client and two dozen other victims received a sentence of more than five years in prison. The prison term of 63 months for Ex-Mutual of Omaha Investor Services representative Edward E. Matthes at his May 20 sentencing is a year more than

Marilyn Booker, former chief diversity officer at Morgan Stanley, filed to dismiss her case last week, after previously accusing the wirehouse of systemic racial and gender discrimination. This filing in the Eastern District of New York likely means there was a settlement between plaintiff Booker and New York-based Morgan Stanley. But little of the settlement

On the morning of May 11, Paul Saganey met with a client in-person for the first time in more than a year. Saganey — CEO of Integrated Partners, a hybrid RIA headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts — closed his firm’s office in the spring of 2020 as part of nationwide lockdown measures meant to contain the

A private equity-backed wealth manager and retirement plan firm acquired a big 401(k) advisor previously affiliated with a rival. OneDigital Investment Advisors purchased the assets of Baltimore-based Fiduciary Plan Advisors, a nine-employee firm managing $6 billion in retirement plan assets on behalf of 200,000 participants, the firm said June 3. The practice, led by Managing

Even the best-performing real estate funds have struggled in the years following the financial crisis. The 20 top-performers tracking the sector, with at least $100 million in assets under management, underperformed broader indexes with an average 10-year gain of roughly 9.5%, Morningstar Direct data show. Over the past year, the same funds notched an overall

In a new episode of the Financial Planning podcast, financial advisor Chloé Moore explains how she and other planners launched a new summer RIA internship program from scratch. Moore is the founder of Atlanta-based Financial Staples, where she works with more than two dozen clients. She’s also one of the four co-founders of the BLatinX

By now, financial advisors should be keenly aware of the value that diversity — having a diverse array of people from different backgrounds, genders, ethnic groups, orientations — brings to their teams. Clients are more often demanding to know that the businesses they’re working with have strong diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) approaches in place,

Technology was supposed to broaden access to financial services and help eliminate economic inequalities. But so far the explosion of banking and investment apps has failed to narrow one persistent divide: the gender gap in financial inclusion. Policy makers should take note. In the post-pandemic recovery, they cannot entrust the market forces of fintech to

A pair of special purpose acquisition companies are taking trading apps public amid weakness in that corner of equity capital markets, testing the willingness of their app users to buy into their business models. Acorns Grow, which offers an app with investing and banking products, is the latest to throw its hat into the public

There’s a common cultural myth that says people don’t talk about money. I disagree; I think we talk about money all the time. Just not enough about what I describe as “the missing pieces of the money conversation.” Here’s what I mean: You talk with your clients about their personal and financial goals; their appetite

Franklin Templeton characterized a former employee as “racist” for calling the police on a Black birdwatcher whom she had words with while walking her dog in Central Park, publicized the incident on Twitter, and falsely claimed it conducted an investigation before firing her, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan. Amy Cooper

A quant pioneer with $112 billion in fixed income assets is defying doom-mongers like Ray Dalio as it places a bullish wager on interest-rate risk. Spurred by groundbreaking insights on systematic investing from its Nobel Prize-winning advisor Eugene Fama, Dimensional Fund Advisors has been extending duration in its core bond portfolios this year. Fama-inspired research

Senator Elizabeth Warren called JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon “the star of the overdraft show.” Her Democratic colleagues pressed him and other CEOs from the biggest U.S. banks to boost lending, raise wages, diversify staff and save the environment. Then there was the warning from Republicans: Stay clear of politics. In what will likely prove a

This is an intense period for the advice industry. New technologies threaten to disrupt the traditional model of service, client expectations are changing and we are on the precipice of a generational transfer of wealth that has the potential to shake up advisor businesses as millennials inherit assets and choose advisors that best suit their

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the legislation it spawned, has upended tax planning in a major way. Both legislation already on the books and legislative proposals that may lie ahead from the Biden administration as well as individual lawmakers will all impact tax planners “We don’t know if the actual legislation will be anything near the

Fintech firm Stash is exploring options for a market listing, such as merging with a special purpose acquisition company or a traditional initial public offering, according to people with knowledge of the matter. “Goldman Sachs acts as our advisor and we continuously assess the market to determine our optimal financing strategy,” Stash co-founder and CEO

In this article MORN Trevor Williams Thematic tech investing is exploding in popularity. Everyone wants to invest in funds that own clean energy, cybersecurity, electric vehicles, e-sports, robotics, 3D printing and cloud computing. But watch out, Morningstar warns: Most of these funds do not outperform the markets, have high fees, high failure rates, and run