Trader Talk

Three of the largest recruiting moves and deals in the independent broker-dealer channel so far this year have involved leaving the sector completely or only joining it in a tangential way. Some 100 recruiting announcements tracked by Financial Planning, which encompass more than 400 advisors with $26 billion in client assets, display the fierce competition

Matt Patsky confronts corporations on everything from their carbon footprints to the diversity of their workforces. But now, in the wake of racial unrest sweeping America, Patsky is having a reckoning of his own. “I get a ‘D’ on diversity,” says Patsky, whose $3 billion Trillium Asset Management pressed investors to divest from South Africa

Ahmie Baum knows something about transitions. After all, the longtime ex-UBS advisor who began his wirehouse career at E.F. Hutton in 1979 has been counseling clients on how to “navigate the known and the unknown” when they sell their businesses or retire from executive, medical or legal careers for 40 years. Former UBS advisor Ahmie

The biggest fund families reported tens of billions of dollars in outflows in the first half of a year roiled by coronavirus-driven market volatility. From January through May, 12 of the 20 largest U.S. fund families reported net outflows from mutual funds and ETFs of approximately $154 billion in combined assets under management, according to

With the compliance deadline for Regulation Best Interest set for the end of the month, the champion of the now-defunct fiduciary rule questioned the SEC’s ability to address burgeoning and yet-to-be quantified conflicts of interest pertaining to revenue sharing. “Without seriously focusing on these newly emerging sources of conflict, the SEC will never be able

UBS is giving wealthy clients the option to invest in equities and fixed-income strategies run by outside managers without charging additional fees. Rich customers can have access to firms including Goldman Sachs’ asset-management unit, Pacific Investment Management and Invesco, UBS said Tuesday in a statement. So-called separately managed accounts drove $9 billion of flows into

The most amazing thing about crisis is how beauty emerges in the aftermath. Most of the world has been living through fires and floods, pestilence and economic collapse, extrajudicial killings and righteous protests by thousands. We sought to create legitimate filters that would register in the minds of readers and the industry, writes judge Mark

Dasarte Yarnway is the founder of Berknell Financial Group in Princeton, New Jersey. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was a young investment advisor at a large firm. I had landed there after a long stretch applying for jobs in management consulting, technology, sales and elsewhere in finance. The soft echoes of the

Last summer, Merrill Lynch advisors Ed Christiansen and Chris Kenny knew it was time for a change. “We were looking at controlling the long-term client experience for us and our clients,” says Kenny. “When we retire, we don’t want those relationships to just be divided out [at a wirehouse].” The team, Muirwood Private Wealth, which

WisdomTree Investments is looking to start a bitcoin ETF, but it faces an uphill battle for approval. The New York-based asset manager plans to launch a fund that could invest as much as 5% of its net assets in bitcoin futures traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, according to a SEC filing. Cryptocurrency supporters have

ETF Managers Group launched an ETF tracking companies focused on testing and treatments of infectious diseases. The ETFMG Treatments, Testing and Advancements ETF, which started trading Thursday under the ticker GERM, gives access to both established biotechnology companies and “unsung heroes,” the firm said in a statement. The fund tracks an index whose biggest holding

BlackRock is moving forward in fulfilling Larry Fink’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis with a slate of ETFs. The asset manager launched several ETFs that track companies using ESG criteria on Thursday. Among the changes BlackRock’s chief outlined in his January letter was making sustainability integral to portfolio construction and risk management. Fink pledged

Rich hedge fund managers are talking about it. So are not-so-rich millennials. And fast-twitch gamers, and bored sports fans and — in all likelihood — some 15-year-olds you know. The “it” is Robinhood Financial’s trading app, which is throwing jet fuel on the speculative fires of coronavirus-era equity markets. Not since the dot-com mania of

The 2020 presidential campaign could mark a turning point in resolving Social Security’s long term financial stability. It comes down to simple math: Some 73 million baby boomers will be at least 65 years old by the end of the decade. The coronavirus pandemic could deplete the program’s $3-trillion trust fund as early as 2028,

The world’s largest wealth manager has a message for any clients tempted to follow day traders into some of the equity market’s more exotic stocks in search of a fast buck: don’t even go there. With little-known companies from Fangdd Network Group to Nikola having seen their stock prices surge manyfold — sometimes in a

As wealth managers struggle to address civil unrest and internal complaints over representation and racial justice, some financial advisors will get Juneteenth — a day commemorating the end of slavery — as a holiday. Advisors at RBC, JPMorgan Chase and PNC Investments will get the afternoon of June 19 off as the companies close office

In just over a year Cresset Asset Management has nearly tripled in size through acquisitions and, with its just-announced purchase of PagnatoKarp, it has hit $9.5 billion in AUM. Cresset Asset Management cofounder Eric Becker, whose background is in private equity, started the RIA “to reinvent the way people experience wealth.” “We continue to explore

A former global head of diversity at Morgan Stanley is suing the company for alleged race discrimination, sharply criticizing her ex-employer’s treatment of black employees and its use of confidential arbitration to settle disputes. Marilyn Booker, who was terminated from the firm in 2019, says her efforts at improving diversity at Morgan Stanley went unsupported

How have the best-performing target-date funds of the decade fared amid recent coronavirus-driven volatility? For clients approaching retirement, one lesson in the space remains a constant: past performance is not indicative of the future returns. The 20 top-performing target-date funds with target dates of 2030 and 2035, and at least $500 million in assets under

The coronavirus pandemic and resulting market volatility has financial advisors rethinking the role insurance plays in client portfolios. “There absolutely has been a significant uptick” in demand for life insurance and annuities, says John Yackel, Envestnet’s head of strategic initiatives. More than 100,000 advisors have used the firm’s Insurance Exchange, he says, adding, “People are

Turns out, fee compression is not a universal phenomenon. Even as the average-weighted expense ratio for active and passive funds fell — yet again — in 2019, there were price hikes in some funds last year, according to a new Morningstar report. Although the expense ratio clients pay has been falling for 20 years —

After eight years, the CEO of the Financial Planning Association, Lauren Schadle, resigned last month. She leaves behind an organization that has lost thousands of members in recent years. Count me among them. I was a member for many years and enjoyed the community dialogue, the Journal of Financial Planning (in which I published five

Depending on how the election turns, big regulatory changes could be on the horizon, according to industry observers and fiduciary advocates. Should former Vice President Joe Biden win the presidential election and his party control both the House and the Senate, that would mean a whole new slate of political appointees, including, in all likelihood,

Growing up in a tiny town outside Houston, Kameron Kindle watched his parents working for themselves, his mother as a beautician and his father as a contract truck driver, without any professional financial guidance. “Nobody in the family had an advisor or had anyone to teach them how to manage money well,” he says. But

Raymond James & Associates snapped up three advisors from Merrill Lynch, where they managed a combined $350 million in assets, according to their new employer. Mike Brown and husband-and-wife Tim and Leslie Gross joined Raymond James’ St. Petersburg, Florida branch, which is managed by Fred Espro. The team is joined by Senior Registered Service Associate

Raymond James said it fired an employee after a video captured him and his wife in a confrontation with a man stenciling “Black Lives Matter” in chalk outside his own San Francisco home. The video shows Robert Larkins, a managing director at Raymond James, with his wife Lisa Alexander, the chief executive officer of LaFace

The largest oil ETF was cleared by U.S. regulators to issue 1 billion new shares, paving the way for renewed investments into the popular retail product that’s been at the center of controversy in recent months. The SEC approval comes nearly eight weeks after the United States Oil Fund (USO) said that it issued all

It took financial advisor Laila Pence about 15 years to grow her practice from $200,000 to $250 million in client assets. Then she felt stuck, she says. “I had to work very hard,” Pence said in a Financial Planning webinar about practice growth . “I realized that, no matter what I did, I could not

After the death of George Floyd on May 25 at the hands of the police, financial advisor Paul “P.J.” Hill started chronicling the history unfolding in his hometown of Minneapolis, posting videos of the aftermatch on his personal YouTube channel. The Wells Fargo advisor says the feedback he received from the videos pushed him to

The coronavirus pandemic is affecting one of the best perks of workplace retirement-savings plans: company matches to employee 401(k) contributions. Many firms in the hard-hit hospitality and retail industries have already suspended, reduced or deferred matches, including Expedia, Hilton Grand Vacations and Best Buy. Even with the recent rally in stocks, many more companies are