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RIABiz

Articles published 1/2015


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Jason Furman's memo: The proposal allows businesses to continue using existing, conflicted business models but requires that they adopt additional consumers protections such as ensuring advisors follow a best interest standard.

The White House puts its best Obamacare minds behind cleaning up the 401(k) business -- starting by issuing a withering memo

The executive branch's endorsement of the fiduciary rule is based on finding that Americans may have to work for an extra three years because of Wall Street overbilling

January 30, 2015 at 9:50 PM

Tom Nally: When you look at it from the clients' eyes, they want to know that their advisor has their back and that their family is going to be ok.  No website can do that.

A Levi's-clad Tom Nally answers 9 questions as TD LINC gets going in San Diego

TD Ameritrade is open to robos, sharing software code and working with Schwab et. al. against the Wall Street lobby

January 29, 2015 at 8:43 PM

Jim Nesci: If 1% of our customers were turned into wealth management clients, it's a new mechanism to feed a new business.

Why a suburban New Jersey bank and a white-shoe $1.3 billion RIA found love in Morrristown

A lousy lending market is stunting Beacon Trust's revenues; enter The MDE Group with its revenue-rich 200 ultra-wealthy clients

January 28, 2015 at 8:54 PM

Rob Isbitts: As the alts industry continues to expand, morph and eventually consolidate, keep in mind that some of your clients can't afford to not have the money they need, when they need it.

How the alternative investments category got bastardized and why that's a shame

A decade on, the investment industry is fast destroying a promising asset class

January 27, 2015 at 6:19 PM

Andrei Cherny: We're trying to bring the investment product relationship online. I do think it harks back.

New robo-advisor, Aspiration, gets ex-eBay head as backer and 40,000 on 'waiting list'

The pay-what-fees-you-want format and $100,000 maximum investment stand out along with its impact investing angle

January 26, 2015 at 7:01 PM

Ric Edelman: Our thought was we'd hire a COO who could turn in a few years into a CEO. We've decided to accelerate that process now.

Wanted: New CEO for Edelman Financial whose name is not Ric Edelman

As Edelman grooms his firm for a sale, the timetable to replace himself at the chief exec spot fast-forwards by years

January 23, 2015 at 8:40 PM

F-Squared's Wellesley, Mass. headquarters

Big brokers take action on F-Squared funds and Virtus shares reel as SEC actions sink in

Lawyers are now threatening class action suits against the $28-billion ETF manager and firms like Raymond James, Stifel and Wells Fargo are making their wariness official

January 22, 2015 at 8:01 PM

New York Fed president Bill Dudley speaks during a Senate subcommittee hearing. [Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty images]

High-level Fed committee overruled Carmen Segarra's finding on Goldman Sachs

New York Fed President Bill Dudley says senior Fed officials did not accept a conclusion that had been endorsed by frontline Fed examiners stationed at some of the nation’s largest banks.

January 21, 2015 at 6:05 PM

Walt Bettinger: We ended 2014 with record client account levels.

Reading between the lines of Schwab's 2014 earnings release to understand investor indifference

Windhaven's results and Schwab Private Client's non-resullts could have investors on edge despite record assets from RIAs

January 20, 2015 at 8:56 PM

The Fed's expert examiner, Carmen Segarra, was admonished for being too brusque and for not seeking enough consensus.

Secret recordings reveal 'regulatory capture' at Goldman Sachs by NY Fed examiners capitulating to the corporation -- before they were even asked

Carmen Segarra secretly recorded 46 hours of audio while embedded as a bank examiner at Goldman Sachs between November 2011 and May 2012.

January 20, 2015 at 6:40 PM

Cardale Jones has already earned one CFP.

Passing on the NFL draft, Cardale Jones has a better idea: Study to become a financial planner

The Ohio State quarterback won the National Championship, humiliating the opposition, and doing it all after being relegated to third string

January 16, 2015 at 8:25 PM

Schwab is hoping Terri Kallsen's stint at USAA will equip her lead the crusade to capture high-end investors.

Schwab promotes relative newcomer Terri Kallsen to head retail, with John Clendening getting the golden parachute and Andy Gill transitioned

The hire from USAA is a nod to that firm's success inspiring loyalty but Kallsen will need to break the streak of short-lived tenures in that position

January 16, 2015 at 5:28 PM

Tim Buckley stuck to the script until 'Joseph' posed a question.

What Vanguard revealed under webcast pressure about its phono-robo's vulnerability

Already gathering $1 billion per quarter, the index giant holds off on VPAS launch for fears of post-beta traffic overwhelm

January 15, 2015 at 5:09 AM

John Hyland pictured yesterday at his chemo session: I have every intention of coming out the other end.

How the industry is rallying to help John Hyland as his cancer returns and why the New Jersey advisor seems impervious to fear

The only path to survival for the owner of a $17-billion AUA OSJ is a bone marrow transplant and advisors are getting swabbed to improve his odds of finding an elusive match

January 14, 2015 at 6:19 PM

To Bill: There was a time when every time you spoke to the media, it took PIMCO higher and your standing with the media went higher still. Talk about credit creation.

Dear Bill Gross, Please stop crowdsourcing emotional support and making open-ended calls of doom

Your recent writings and media interviews are still infected by your PIMCO dethroning but find a new outlet for venting about that

January 13, 2015 at 7:10 PM

Dan Inveen: The pay is probably out of whack with a similar job in another industry.

The giant raise RIA folk got in 2014 and the threat it poses in 2015

The 20% jump means money in the pocket and a rather frightening overhead scenario

January 12, 2015 at 8:38 PM

Ray Ifert [with Lorraine Faedo]: A number of services and products you provide can create some stickiness but as long as you're going to a firm that has the same abilities, the clients will come.

Why an $850 million BNY Mellon RIA team finally said 'yes' to Raymond James after a 'no' in 2007

LPL may have the lead in the quantity of RIAs it's bringing onboard, but Bill Van Law touts this win as an exemplar of the high-quality firms RJ is attracting

January 9, 2015 at 8:22 PM

Brooke Southall: Keep expressing heartfelt, unsanitized views, keep reading other's views, critically but copiously, and keep encouraging this intense unending interchange that is at the heart of what we do and who we are as we live in freedom.

RIABiz takes stock as journalism comes under siege

The recent blizzard of attacks on journalists, cartoonists and moviemakers reminds how precious is the right to give and receive free expression

January 8, 2015 at 10:17 PM

Steve Lockshin: The long play is as this generation of advisors turns over that we’ve created the time and space for advisors to focus on things that give their clients joy.

Debriefing a post-Convergent Steve Lockshin as he once more builds a classic RIA -- or is it neo-classical?

AdvicePeriod's chief says he won't poach Convergent (if he can avoid it) and hopes that his $300-million RIA will have a Betterment feel

January 8, 2015 at 5:55 PM

Robert Thomas: They knew what they were doing.

Marty Bicknell buys a $1.1 billion RIA that serves the mass affluent, and taps credit for the first time

In buying Vantage with borrowed funds, 'liquidity' per se was not the issue for Mariner Wealth; speed of execution was

January 7, 2015 at 8:11 PM

Figures don't lie but the SEC says that liars did figure.

How Howard Present parlayed an intern's algorithm into a small fortune -- and when the SEC says he knew of a mega-disconnect

The SEC alleges that the former F-Squared CEO engaged in a massive cover-up with lies, and the fabrication related to faulty backtesting

January 6, 2015 at 6:20 PM

Wealthfront is the robo-advisor most associated with the term -- and with the founder, Andy Rachleff, who hates it most.

What exactly are robo-advisors, why did they steal the 2014 show and what will a 2015 repeat take?

We're talking 500 people, $250 million in capital with identifiable characteristics and 5,000 nervous legacy providers

January 2, 2015 at 5:36 PM

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