Trader Talk

Wells Fargo revealed changes to its compensation plan for next year, tweaking some core components and adding two new awards. “We’ve really tried to meticulously balance our view of trends and priorities with the investments we make across the compensation plan,” says Rich Getzoff, head of branch network at Wells Fargo. Under the new pay

Janney Montgomery Scott picked up four advisor teams managing roughly $784 million in clients assets. In Miami, the firm welcomed Young Wealth Management, a $258 million family advisor team from Ameriprise, Janney says. Roark Young, first vice president of wealth management, started his financial services career as co-founder and president of Young, Stovall and Company

Fidelity Digital Assets will allow its institutional customers to pledge Bitcoin as collateral against cash loans in a partnership with blockchain startup BlockFi. The unit of Boston-based asset manager Fidelity Investments will hold the digital asset and not make loans itself, says Tom Jessop, president of Fidelity Digital Assets. The target is Bitcoin investors who

As incumbent wealth managers aim to further their reach in the $32-trillion U.S. retirement market, Raymond James scooped up a plan administration, consulting and actuarial firm. Raymond James agreed to buy the independent holding company that owns Seattle-based Northwest Plan Services, which services more than 400,000 participants with $35 billion in plan assets, the firms

One of the largest independent firms affiliated with Raymond James Financial Services recruited 10 advisors with $1.1 billion in client assets in a roughly two-month span. Concurrent added seven teams from Edward Jones, Wells Fargo Advisors and Wedbush Securities between late August and the end of October, the San Diego-based firm said Dec. 9. The

State Street is exploring options for its asset management business, including a merger with a competitor, as it seeks to gain scale, people familiar with the matter said. The Boston-based firm has been informally working with an adviser to review strategic alternatives for the unit, known as State Street Global Advisors, according to the people.

On Nov. 3, elections were held throughout the United States. While the majority of positions filled by voters that day were for state and local governments, U.S. citizens were also tasked with selecting the individual to lead our country as president for the next four years. Additionally, 33 seats in the U.S. Senate were up

With its $300-million acquisition of Waddell & Reed’s wealth management arm, LPL Financial is inheriting an advisory unit that had been undergoing a multi-year shift away from its legacy asset manager distribution strategy. LPL’s deal, inked in partnership with the Australian investment bank Macquarie Group, will test whether 922 Waddell & Reed advisors feel ready

Besides COVID-19, another big headline in 2020 may well have been ”Global Financial Markets Worked.” Amid historic market volatility and uncertainty — triggered by an ongoing pandemic that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, various waves of patchwork lockdown and work-from-home orders, and a tumultuous and divisive election — the resilience of the modern

Vanguard created the price-cutting fervor that became an Olympic sport in money management. Now it’s feeling the toll of that competition. The fund giant amassed $6.3 trillion on founder Jack Bogle’s once-contrarian idea that it could thrive by focusing on cutting costs for investors. That ethos, which helped Vanguard earn the trust of small savers

A former LPL Financial and TIAA executive started her own consulting firm aimed at advancing women among wealth managers and in other STEM industries. Kathleen Zemaitis, LPL’s former head of advisor diversity and inclusion, launched Z Inclusion Consulting last month. In her roughly 10 years with No. 1 independent broker-dealer, Zemaitis helped lead a ramp-up

A recent pair of fintech acquisitions show how serious the advisor industry is getting about digital marketing. FMG Suites, a company specializing in marketing software for financial advisors, kicked off December by acquiring Twenty Over Ten, a competing digital marketing platform. On the same day, digital marketing provider Seismic acquired Grapevine6, a fintech firm with

A former Merrill Lynch team with more than $500 million in client assets has left the wirehouse to open a new office with Snowden Lane Partners. Magnolia Wealth Advisors which specializes in managing the assets of individuals and families, includes advisors Bill Markel, Michael Schmatz and Michael Kreuzer, senior client relationship manager VeLisa Williams and

In a year marked by the coronavirus pandemic and a hotly contested presidential election, it’s no surprise that flows to mutual funds and ETFs in 2020 have largely gone to safe havens. The 20 funds with the biggest year-to-date inflows, and at least $500 million in assets, added a combined $189 billion, Morningstar Direct data

Jon Stein is stepping down as CEO of Betterment, a $25 billion robo advisor he founded a decade ago. His departure is effective Dec. 8, although he will remain chairman of the company and will help his successor, Sarah Kirshbaum Levy, transition into the new role. Levy, Viacom Media Networks’ former COO, joined Betterment for

An established, well-thought-out succession plan is crucial to an RIA’s seamless transition and future growth. Yet more than a quarter of independent advisors have no plan in place and, according to DeVoe & Company’s RIA M&A Outlook Study, more than half of firms say that a transition from the leaders to successors would be difficult.

UBS landed a Merrill Lynch team that oversaw $920 million in client assets. The wirehouse’s new additions — Darrick Walker, David Leibowitz and Michael Muniz — joined the firm in its Walnut Creek, California branch, according to an internal company memo seen by Financial Planning. Walker, Leibowitz and Muniz are industry veterans. Walker started his

Retail investors were effectively locked out of their brokerage accounts on Monday as a top online trading platform, Interactive Brokers, was crippled by technical trouble. The news coincided with a brief and apparently unrelated outage at Robinhood, the one-click trading app whose popularity has surged during the pandemic. The twin outages infuriated many investors, who

New York Stock Exchange building is seen decorated for Christmas at the Financial District in New York City, United States on November 30, 2020. Anadolu Agency | Getty Images IPOs vs. SPACs:  Who will win in 2021?  2020 was a surprisingly good year for IPOs, but it was an even better year for Special Purpose

On Jan. 22, the CDC received notification of the first case of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in the United States. In the following days, weeks and months, the virus continued to spread, leading to a health crisis that has resulted in the loss of nearly a quarter of a million American lives. Unfortunately, this only begins to

Goldman Sachs named John Mallory and Meena Flynn as co-heads of global private wealth management, a business that’s key to the bank’s aim to diversify revenue streams beyond its core strengths of dealmaking and trading. The changes take effect Jan. 1, the firm said in a memo Wednesday. Mallory is currently head of Americas Private

HSAs get hailed as a boon to retirement savers, offering rare triple-tax advantage status to dollars deposited within. But these accounts, offered in tandem with high-deductible health insurance coverage, are far more versatile than they get credit for. Typically thought of and discussed primarily as a way to help clients meet medical bills today or

A record outflow from one of Vanguard’s biggest ETFs is stirring speculation over who was behind it and why. More than $7 billion was pulled from the $172 billion Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) on a single day this week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, about 4% of the fund’s assets. But trading volumes

Just two months after partnering with fintech firm 55ip on tax-efficient transfers of assets and model portfolios, JPMorgan Chase is bringing the technology under its own roof. The firm’s investment management wing will acquire 55ip, which provides tax automation technology to financial advisors, for an undisclosed amount. The deal is expected to close by the

Goldman Sachs has plans for Folio Financial’s RIA custodian, but not its retail brokerage business. The investment bank, which purchased Folio in September, is selling the self-directed retail brokerage segment to Interactive Brokers, according to a Dec. 4 announcement. Under the deal, Interactive Brokers will acquire approximately 70,000 retail accounts and $3 billion in client

Traders work on the floor of the NYSE in New York. NYSE Options trading is the new sports betting. Talk about unintended consequences. The stay-at-home requirement created by Covid-19 has spawned a huge sub-industry in options trading in tandem with an increase in equities trading that shows no signs of letting up.   Trading in equity

RBC tapped an industry veteran and company insider to lead its Pacific Northwest complex. For the past three years, Nate Angelo has been serving as head of advisor development and engagement at RBC Wealth Management, according to the firm. He’s worked on practice management and team consulting for the company’s more than 2,000 financial advisors.

“Before COVID-19, we were scared to bring up our wealth with our children.” These were the candid words of a longtime client who called about a month ago, echoing a sentiment I hear more often than I’d like. But fortunately, for many ultrahigh-net-worth families like his, there has been an important shift during the pandemic.

Merrill Lynch will leave its compensation plan’s incentive grid unchanged for 2021 but it is making tweaks elsewhere — including a cut to payouts on small accounts. “We felt it was important to maintain stability,” said a senior Merrill Lynch executive, who requested anonymity in order to discuss the matter. The news comes as the

In the end, it was the prospect of an open-architecture platform that helped Mayflower Advisors to go fully independent after 14 years with Wells Fargo. Lloyd Glazer, his son Larry Glazer, and Steven Dimitriou, cofounders of the $3.7 billion boutique investment and financial advisory practice, brought with them a 35-person team overseeing the assets of