Trader Talk

The failure of equity fund managers to deliver outsize returns commensurate with the fees they charge for their stock-picking services continues to be a source of ammunition for advocates of lower-cost index tracking products. Less scrutinized, although equally dreadful, is the seeming inability of their bond brethren to offer a fixed-income alternative that can generate

Who’s better for business: Trump or Biden? For many wealth managers, the answer is resoundingly President Trump. And not just for business. A majority of advisors said that the president’s reelection would be better for the country and their industry than if former Vice President Joe Biden emerged victorious in the November election, according to

In June, the Department of Labor issued an information letter giving the green light to defined contribution plans’ use of private equity within asset allocation funds, such as target date funds. This opens the door for plan sponsors seeking to offer more pension-like investment options to plan participants, who have until now largely been limited

Pay cuts introduced by U.S. employers in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic — meant to stave off layoffs and retain key employees — have proved less temporary than perhaps originally envisioned. The majority of workers who took a reduction as the virus brought the economy to a halt are still earning less than

When Wells Fargo announced Thursday that it has signed a data-sharing agreement with Envestnet Yodlee, it was a milestone for the company. Four years ago, Wells Fargo began a campaign to eliminate screen scraping — the practice in which data aggregators sign in to online or mobile banking using a customer’s credentials, copy and paste

There’s a lengthy checklist financial advisors complete when going independent, but selecting where to house client assets is possibly the most critical item on it. The decision can entail re-papering client assets, setting up new technology, learning new systems and, ultimately, finding the partner who will make client trades and support an RIA’s growth. Advisors

Advisors and brokers bracing for examinations under the SEC’s Regulation Best Interest now have tips about what’s going to show up on the test. State regulators will be checking to see how firms have adjusted their practices with respect to conflicts of interest, sales of complex products and investor profile questionnaires, among other areas, according

Prudential Securities has terminated a broker who was recently accused of making racist comments towards two patrons in a California restaurant. Sophia Chang, co-founder of a women’s apparel company, claims in a social media post that the man told her to “go back to Wuhan,” a reference to the Chinese city believed to be the

It’s not surprising that Charles Scharf, the CEO of Wells Fargo, would point to a pipeline problem as one reason his company has a poor record of hiring and promoting Black employees. The sentiment is all too common, even among leaders like Scharf, who are doing lots of the right things when it comes to

Clients have found better-performing and less expensive products in the variable annuity marketplace, thanks in part to the Obama-era fiduciary rule, a new academic study argues. The study, written by three finance and economics professors at Harvard Business School and New York University, takes a fresh look at some of the most hotly disputed topics

Steelcase Office solutions redesigned for Coronavirus Source: Steelcase What will the post-Covid workplace look like? Steelcase is one of the largest manufacturers of office furniture — desks, chairs, storage products and office pods — and they have a lot of ideas. They are partnering with MIT to better understand how air circulates in an office

After taking regulatory supervision remote due to the coronavirus pandemic, FINRA is now considering whether the in-person component of cycle examinations will always be necessary going forward, according to CEO Robert Cook. The regulator halted the onsite component of its cycle exams on member firms earlier this year, which involved tours of a firm’s offices

Invesco is looking to active, nontransparent ETFs as the next step forward for the $4.6 trillion industry, hoping the new products will be less vulnerable to traders who exploit expected changes in ETF holdings. The Atlanta-based investment firm, which currently manages $1.2 trillion, is pursuing both a methodology from Fidelity Investments that keeps some holdings

Almost five years ago, the National Resources Defense Council came to State Street Global Advisors with an investment idea. Those talks resulted in the creation of a green ETF, the SPDR S&P 500 Fossil Fuel Free ETF (SPYX), with NRDC among its initial investors. The fund was designed to mimic the performance of the S&P

A $400 million advisor duo is leaving Northwestern Mutual, where they’ve spent the entirety of their career, to open an RIA. “We wanted more flexibility and a quicker response time to adjusting our operational technology and our client-facing technology,” said one of the advisors, Michael Leverty, in an email. This is the first move for

For all the talk on tackling climate change, BlackRock and Vanguard aren’t doing much to assist global investor efforts on the topic, according to nonprofit group Majority Action. The two fund giants voted for 99% of U.S. directors proposed by the energy, utility, banking and automotive companies reviewed by Majority Action and voted overwhelmingly against

Three former senior Wells Fargo executives have agreed to pay six-figure fines to regulators in connection with the bank’s unauthorized account scandal. Matthew Raphaelson, Kenneth Zimmerman and Tracy Kidd were all once executives in Wells Fargo’s consumer banking unit. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency found in settlements announced Monday that they either

The 20 mutual funds with the decade’s largest net outflows lost a combined $620 billion. With an average 10-year return of 11.4%, these funds were just shy of the broader fund industry’s performance over the period, according to Morningstar Direct data. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) and the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average

America’s ETFs are shutting down at a record pace and the production line is stuttering as issuers struggle to sell new products in the $5 trillion market. More than 130 ETFs have been liquidated in 2020, already the most ever, while 178 funds have started trading — roughly on course to match last year’s launches.

Wall Street leaders made the case this week for bringing more workers back to the office, while a rash of COVID-19 infections on trading floors showed how quickly they could be sent back home. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Barclays all had to quarantine groups of traders after employees tested positive for the coronavirus. The

Nearly three months after taking over as Cetera Financial Group’s head recruiting executive, John Pierce says the firm is “being ultra-competitive” when recruiting advisors. “We’re increasing our deals for higher quality advisors that have larger percentages of advisory business,” Pierce said in his first interview with Financial Planning after moving to Cetera following tenures with

I’m on record as being a skeptic when it comes to single premium immediate annuities. Just two years ago, I wrote that although an “SPIA is the least ugly of annuities, guaranteed returns from variable annuities are far worse since the return comes in the form of an annuitization later on, at below-market rates rather

Will Danoff has been wondering why billions of dollars keep flowing out of the Contrafund, the giant mutual fund he manages at Fidelity Investments. Performance isn’t the problem. He’s up 21% this year, trouncing the S&P 500’s 6.2% return. His conclusion: Today’s kids want something sexier. “There’s a demographic issue,” said Danoff, who has beaten

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said he worries that working remotely results in a lack of productivity and collaboration. “The most difficult issue for all of us is retention of a culture,” Fink said Thursday during a virtual conference hosted by Morningstar. “Cultures were not meant to be done in a remote fashion.” Fink said that

A state court rejected Credit Suisse’s request to vacate part of an arbitration award, ruling that arbitrators had not exceeded their authority by awarding hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney fees to four former Credit Suisse advisors. The decision marks the latest twist in a series of legal battles between the bank and its

Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management has settled a dispute with a worker who claimed the firm discriminated against female employees. Arbitrator Martin Scheinman on Thursday confirmed that the case has been resolved and provided a statement from the parties indicating that they had settled the claims amicably before a decision was issued. Lauren Bonner, an

In its third recruiting grab of at least $1 billion in client assets this year, LPL Financial poached a 13-advisor enterprise from Securian Financial. Not only has LPL attracted advisors with almost $39 billion in client assets in the last four quarters, it has also completed three of the 10 largest recruiting moves among IBDs

Nuveen’s staff will not return to its offices until 2021, CEO Jose Minaya said. That decision was “heavily debated” and so far the company has found that its operations have fared well with staff working remotely, he said at the FT Future of Asset Management virtual conference Thursday. Chicago-based Nuveen is the investment arm of

A trader working after the Nasdaq opening bell ceremony on April 18, 2019 in New York City. Kena Betancur | Getty Images Stock picking has a terrible track record, and it’s getting worse. That’s the thesis of Larry Swedroe and Andrew Berkin’s book, “The Incredible Shrinking Alpha,” just out in its second edition. Swedroe is

A Merrill Lynch team managing $1 billion in assets is going independent to exercise more control over the digital tools they offer clients. The Frederick, Maryland-based team formerly known as The Will Group at Merrill has rebranded as RS Will Wealth Management, an independent firm affiliated with Kestra Financial. Along with increased personalization in investment