Trader Talk

Stifel has signed on a four-advisor team that was previously at Morgan Stanley, where they managed $680 million in client assets. The team, known as the Founders Group, is led by advisors Michael Berard, Richard and Frank Dworsky, and David Bomar. “Following extensive due diligence, our group decided that Stifel offered the client-centric approach and

Just what we need in the endless grip of pandemic: new tax scams. This year’s IRS Dirty Dozen list includes rip-offs that sprang up like toadstools to prey on filing and economic relief efforts. For example, the IRS would never call about a coronavirus-related Economic Impact Payment. While some scams are now, others are evil

A Goldman Sachs sign is seen on at the company’s post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Brendan McDermid | Reuters It doesn’t look like Wall Street is going back to work in any great numbers, at least any time soon. That seems to be the message from major money center banks

The CFP Board took a major step forward in its longstanding efforts to diversify the ranks of CFPs by electing Kamila McDonnough as its first Black woman chair. A veteran of Vanguard, where she served ultrahigh-net-worth clients, and Dimensional Fund Advisors, McDonnough’s term begins in 2022. Doug King, CEO of Oakwood Capital Partners and former

Brokerage app Robinhood should improve its consumer protections, Congressional lawmakers say, following the suicide of Alex Kearns, a 20-year-old investor who had a negative balance of $730,000 on his account. In a letter addressed to Robinhood co-founders Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, lawmakers press the company on how it determines which users can access risky

This has been a summer unlike any other. It’s only fitting that our annual list of beach reads for financial advisors, based on recommendations from your fellow planners, executives and industry experts, covers a particularly wide range of topics and genres — from estate planning to racial disparities; from fraud to science fiction — with

Wells Fargo’s chief has set his sights on the bank’s costs. Charlie Scharf, who took over as chief executive officer late last year, said he will start cutting expenses in the second half of this year and aims to eventually trim at least $10 billion of costs. The company has too many management layers, and

As competing financial wealth management technology platforms expand their product offerings or get acquired by financial institutions, Riskalyze is adding a new board member to deepen connections with one of its closest partners. Brian McLaughlin, CEO of Redtail, a client relationship management software tailored to financial advisors, is joining the board of directors at Riskalyze,

A tag hangs from a Steelcase London Ltd. desk chair in the former offices of Duff Capital Advisors LP in Greenwich, Connecticut. Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images With nearly half of the S&P 500 declining to provide earnings guidance, simple verbal commentary from a CEO or CFO —whether in a quarterly earnings press

The 20 index funds with the largest net outflows over the past 10 years lost a combined $59.21 billion in assets under management, according to data from Morningstar Direct. Their losses represented nearly half of their net weight in cash, according to the data. The funds — tracking sectors from emerging markets to bonds commodities

Ameriprise Financial is suing one of its former advisors, asking a federal court to force him to pay the firm more than $700,000 over an arbitration award he lost earlier this year. It’s the latest attempt by a brokerage firm to demand repayment of promissory notes from former advisors. Ameriprise has been an aggressive recruiter

To get a sense of analysts’ expectations heading into Wells Fargo’s second-quarter earnings results, released on Tuesday, look no further than this backhandedly optimistic perspective from Credit Suisse’s Susan Roth Katzke: “A ‘broken’ bank can be fixed.” The third-largest U.S. bank by assets has been in turmoil relative to peers for years, ever since a

The SEC will allow most employees to continue working from home at least until October as the Wall Street regulator extends accommodations initiated in response to the coronavirus pandemic. SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said in an email to staff late last week that the agency had been functioning well with employees working remotely and that

Robinhood has raised fresh funding as more first-time investors sign onto the app’s simple mobile interface to trade stocks. The latest cash influx of $320 million brings the company’s most recent funding round to $600 million, and values the startup at $8.6 billion. Robinhood’s climbing price tag makes the fee-free trading app one of the

There were some hard questions Frank LaQuinta had to answer when he took charge of Edward Jones’ information systems division in 2018. What tech is best for financial advisors to grow their business while keeping data safe from cybercriminals? What next-generation tools will planners need tomorrow? And do they have what they need to stay

A former UBS team that managed $250 million in client assets has joined Steward Partners in Clearwater, Florida, according to the firm. The Blue Water Wealth Management team is headed by advisors Chris McAdoo and Richard Humphrey. They are also joined by Humphrey’s spouse, Anita, wealth manager associate, and Christina Elam, senior wealth management associate.

People pass a sign for JPMorgan Chase at it’s headquarters in Manhattan, New York City. Spencer Platt | Getty Images Earnings season, which officially starts Tuesday with JPMorgan and Wells Fargo, is going to be wild — and unpredictable. Here’s why: About 40% of companies are not providing any guidance at all. As a result,

Even before this year’s market crash, the wealth management industry’s richest clients were frustrated about fees. A third of those with more than $1 million of investable assets were uncomfortable with them in 2019, according to Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2020. Such discomfort will likely rise in today’s volatile markets. The survey of more than

RBC gained two new advisors from Wells Fargo and Merrill Lynch , where they managed a combined $550 million in client assets, according to the firm. Former Wells Fargo advisor James “Ernie” Koestner has joined RBC’s Dallas branch. He managed $370 million in client assets at his old firm. Koestner logged 19 years at A.G.

Wells Fargo, the largest employer among U.S. banks, is preparing to cut thousands of jobs starting later this year, potentially setting a bleak precedent for an industry that’s been resisting mass layoffs as the coronavirus pandemic worsens. Pressure to dramatically reduce costs is coming to a head inside the bank, prompting executives to draft plans

For Black professionals who get job offers on Wall Street, there’s pay and benefits to consider. But also isolation, bias and racism. As big U.S. banks and asset managers vow at long last to address the industry’s dearth of Black executives, those who have been around a while warn progress will require more than the

A UBS Asset Management hedge fund beat peers in the first half with relative-value trades that shorted pandemic-struck stocks, and is now pouncing on the market’s next dislocations. The $6.1 billion UBS O’Connor fund gained 11.5% through the end of June, according to a person with knowledge of returns who declined to be identified as

To see how much the world has changed for IBDs, look no further than the expanding gap between the amount of advisory fees and commissions. Fees outpaced commissions for the first time in 2017 by a mere $112 million among the 50 largest wealth managers participating in Financial Planning’s IBD Elite survey. That chasm has

It’s the IRS to the rescue! Really. The government agency has come through for those with retirement savings. Within one week in late June, the IRS expanded the relief Congress provided in the CARES Act, releasing guidance for returning unwanted required minimum distributions and expanding coronavirus-related distribution (CRD) provisions so that more U.S. taxpayers will

At first glance, the Small Business Administration’s PPP loan data reveals which firms received government help to fund operations amid the coronavirus pandemic. But a closer analysis paints a broader and more nuanced picture of how — and where — the investment advisory industry has snapped up these government loans. An examination of the data,

A former Morgan Stanley team that managed $1.4 billion in client assets left the firm to join independent broker-dealer Insigneo, according to the firm. The Los Angeles-based team was referred to Insigneo by Sanctuary Wealth, which collaborated on the transition. Sanctuary has also been adding to it’s ranks, most recently bringing on another ex-Morgan Stanley

You’ve heard about the trade war with China. There may be a separate, potential “financial war” brewing. The Securities and Exchange Commission wants you to know more about what is happening with Chinese companies that list in the United States. The regulators also want you to know that they are having a really hard time

In March, when investors were pulling record amounts of cash out of municipal bond funds as the coronavirus shut down much of the U.S., Nuveen’s parent, TIAA, extended a lifeline to the high-yield fund run by investment star John Miller. TIAA purchased $1.1 billion worth of shares in the Nuveen fund run by manager John

The Department of Labor’s proposal to replace the vacated fiduciary rule is set to upend standards governing retirement advice. Again. Like its Obama-era predecessor, the department’s proposal is already facing intense criticism for its allegedly permissive attitude toward conflicts of interests and a hasty rulemaking process. Even Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia, who as a

To take a PPP loan or not? For Riskalyze CEO Aaron Klein, it “wasn’t a close call.” Klein’s firm took one earlier this year following a dramatic drop in the stock market and the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. It saved jobs, he says. His risk analytics firm and other fintechs accepted federal aid aimed