Trader Talk

Traders wearing masks work, on the first day of in person trading since the closure during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 26, 2020. Brendan McDermid | Reuters It finally happened, but not without some drama. The S&P 500

Robinhood Financial raised new funding at a valuation of about $11.2 billion, as Dan Sundheim’s D1 Capital Partners poured $200 million into the online trading company. The seven-year-old firm was most recently valued at $8.6 billion during its July funding round, before it posted record trading figures for June. It revealed daily average revenue trades

Advisor movement is spiking. There are a number of factors driving this trend. Here’s a short list. Advisors are increasingly confident of their ability to transition assets and do business during the coronavirus pandemic. When the public health crisis broke on our shores, advisors were initially preoccupied with calming clients on the one hand and

As markets have struggled in the first eight months of the year, the price of gold has surged. And although funds tracking the sector have sported flashy gains, one thing is always certain in the fund world: yesterday’s glitz may not be an indicator of tomorrow’s glam. The 20 top-performing funds that track Morningstar’s precious

The IRS is reopening the registration period for parents to list their kids so they can receive an extra $500 per child in economic impact payments under the CARES Act. The $2.2 trillion stimulus package that Congress passed in March to help blunt the economic impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic included $1,200 in “Economic

ETF investors will soon be able to hedge the world’s safest asset. Innovator ETFs will launch two so-called buffer funds tracking long-dated Treasurys on Aug. 18, according to a company statement Friday. They’ll be the first fixed-income products of that category to begin trading amid a surge in popularity for defined-outcome equity funds — which

Advisors have been begging their clients for years to put money aside for emergencies. Americans are finally listening. The idea of the emergency fund is to make sure you have easily accessible cash — usually three to 12 months of expenses — in the event of, say, a global pandemic. Prior to March, many financial

It used to be that novices went about investing the right way. They bought low-cost mutual or ETFs using the dollar-cost averaging strategy and held them for years. But a gigantic stock market rally since late March seems to have inspired millions of new investors. And instead of being confined to relatively safe, stodgy funds,

Stifel has signed on two advisors from Wells Fargo, where they managed $480 million in client assets, according to the regional BD. Paul Schluckebier and David Hood will staff a new Stifel office in Owosso, Michigan. The additions further Stifel’s hiring spree in Michigan, where it now has 17 offices. Earlier this month, Stifel said

Hightower Advisors likes to soften the language when it buys RIAs, describing its fifth deal of the year as a “strategic investment,” as it has for the others. But, make no mistake, Teak Tree Capital Management and its $600 million in assets under management are now part of the aggregator. “It is an acquisition,” Hightower

Legions of young investors flocking to cheap trading platforms to pass the time during the pandemic are looking no further than their own banks. That’s one conclusion at Bank of America, where volume on its Merrill Edge Self-Directed platform rose 180% in the second quarter, the bank said in a statement Friday. Of the 330,000

Q: I read somewhere that FINRA is now charging almost $10,000 for an expungement hearing instead of $300. Is that right? A: While FINRA has recently raised its fees pretty significantly for expungement cases, it’s not entirely accurate to say it costs $10,000 — at least if you’re only looking at it from the registered

Wealth management earnings may be tumbling, but that hasn’t slowed the rising number of recruiting moves and M&A deals. At least 542 registered representatives managing $34.4 billion in client assets switched their broker-dealers in nearly 150 recruiting grabs announced by independent firms so far this year, according to Financial Planning’s tracking. The 36 moves, executive

The pandemic has created an unexpected boom in one corner of finance: surveillance. As traders continue to work from home, banks are beefing up their efforts to monitor staff and root out any misconduct, according to NICE Actimize, which makes compliance, risk and financial-crime software. There’s been a surge of interest in advanced technology, such

The biggest U.S. and European banks added 19,000 people to their payrolls in the first half of the year as demand for loans and other services surged during the pandemic and planned staff cuts were largely put on hold. Eight of the top 15 firms increased headcount this year through June, while only four reduced

Brookfield Asset Management said it raised a record $23 billion during the second quarter and expects to accelerate the pace of investments after the disruption caused by COVID-19. The alternative asset manager said it has $77 billion in cash, securities and other available capital, including uncalled capital commitments from clients. That figure includes $12 billion

Wirehouses are setting their sights on digital financial planning, and it could erode one of independent advisors’ biggest competitive advantages. Merrill Lynch’s latest update to its technology brings together two traditionally separate tools, planning and investment proposals, into a single digital workflow the firm calls Personal Wealth Analysis. Without needing to switch programs, print any

RBC furthered its hiring surge, bringing on a team of four ex-Morgan Stanley advisors that managed $675 million in client assets, according to the regional BD. The firm’s newest additions are based in Beverly Hills, California and come on the heels of RBC signing an advisor in late July who managed $750 million in client

It’s taken three decades, more than $4.5 trillion in assets and a change to the rules. But some of the most reluctant money managers on Wall Street are finally ready to embrace ETFs. Wells Fargo, Federated Investors and Dimensional Fund Advisors could all launch their first ETFs in the near future, according to filings and

An Ameriprise advisor has asked a federal judge to reconsider an order barring him from talking with former clients at JPMorgan, arguing that he never had his day in court. U.S. District Judge Janet Neff had granted JPMorgan’s request for a temporary restraining order within 48 hours of the bank filing the lawsuit — and

On Friday, Andy Ferguson was an advisor of 37 years at Merrill Lynch. On Monday, he took the leap to independence by starting his own fee-only RIA affiliated with Dynasty Financial Partners. “It’s scary, but it’s exciting,” says Ferguson, who managed $360 million in assets at the wirehouse. The Las Vegas-based advisor says he was

A worker wearing a protective mask adjusts a torque wrench inside the service area at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Oakland, California, on Thursday, July 16, 2020. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images The dark side of good earnings: Companies are talking about turning “furloughs” into permanent layoffs. You knew this was coming. It’s

It has not been a good year for energy. Travel restrictions imposed due to coronavirus and the Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war have sent stock holdings in oil and natural gas reeling. The result? Double-digit losses from some of the industry’s biggest energy funds. The 20 mutual funds and ETFs with the biggest losses so

Interactive Brokers will pay $38 million to three regulators for allegedly failing to detect fraudulent transactions by customers that cost more than 50 investors millions of dollars in losses. Regulators took the firm to task for multiple alleged shortcomings in its compliance systems, missing “numerous red flags,” according to the SEC. For instance, the agency

In two weeks, RBC has gained five advisors who managed a collective $472 million in client assets at their previous employers, according to the firm. This comes on the heels of RBC’s hire of an advisor in the Bay Area who managed $750 million in assets. The newest additions have joined RBC offices across the

Saving money takes time, but learning the basics about saving can take just a few minutes. Check out these bite-sized answers to 21 savings account questions (and the links to more information if you want to dig deeper). Building your banking IQ now can help you make smart money moves in the future.

First, he was called a Chinese spy. Then he was accused of misleading his board. Yet Ben Meng stayed on as investment chief at California’s mammoth state pension plan. What finally drove him to quit wasn’t only the public pressure, it was a Wall Street sin every rookie in the business knows to avoid: He

Gold’s growing popularity as a bond substitute in the world’s most prevalent investment strategies may be the metal’s undoing, at least as far as using it as a hedge is concerned. With Treasury yields at historic lows, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Morgan Stanley are among the ranks openly questioning whether bonds still serve as

Renaissance Technologies, one of the industry’s best performing hedge fund firms, is down 13.4% this year in its biggest fund open to the public despite the surging U.S. stock market. While the Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund gained 2.4% last month, it was still outpaced by equities for the year, a rarity in the four-decade history

Investors should consider the risk of a successful coronavirus vaccine unsettling markets by sparking a sell-off in bonds and rotation out of technology into cyclical stocks, according to Goldman Sachs. The increased probability of an approved vaccine by the end of November is underpriced by equity markets, wrote strategists including Kamakshya Trivedi in a note