February 5, 2012

Tech update: Data standards elusive

By Davis D. Janowski

Lack of data standards has slowed the evolution of the advisory business. “Things move at glacial speed in the financial services world,” said Bill Harris, who is probably best known for having served as chief executive at both PayPal and Intuit Inc.

• Charles Schwab & Co.,
• E*Trade Financial Corp.,
• TD Ameritrade Institutional,
• technology

February 5, 2012

Here's what financial advisers should do (and not do) to protect clients from cybercrime

Like it or not, financial advisers are now on the front lines in the war against cybercrime. In the past few years, there has been an extraordinary increase in the level of sophistication among cybercriminals, said Philip J. Blank, managing director of security, risk and fraud at...

• technology

February 5, 2012

Past performance may be a harbinger for future, after all

Despite decades of statements to the contrary, it turns out that past performance actually is a pretty good indicator of future mutual fund returns — provided that the performance is adjusted for risk. By measuring the volatility of mutual funds' average daily returns, some...

• mutual funds,
• technology

February 2, 2012

Tech vendors unveil new offerings at TD's conference

By Davis D. Janowski

Interactive Advisory Software, has officially unveiled version 5.0 of its Solution 360 at the TD Ameritrade Institutional conference being held in Orlando this week.For those unaware Solution 360 was one of the first all-in-one platforms available to the registered investment adviser segment....

• technology

January 29, 2012

Performance reporting is vexing

By Lavonne Kuykendall

Despite software that makes it possible to report portfolio performance going far beyond net gains and losses, many financial advisers remain reluctant to provide in-depth answers to their clients' most basic question: “How am I doing?” Whatever the reasons for that...

• technology

January 29, 2012

Jumping on Salesforce bandwagon

The Salesforce bandwagon is filling up. Advisor Group, a large independent-broker-dealer network, will roll out Salesforce.com to financial advisers affiliated with all three of its firms — FSC Securities Corp., Royal Alliance Associates Inc. and SagePoint Financial Inc....

• technology

January 29, 2012

Numbers aren't nearly as important as education

Most sophisticated portfolio management and reporting systems allow an adviser to tell a complete performance story to their clients. But how complete the story is relies more on the adviser than the software. Commonwealth Financial Network's Client 360 platform, for example,...

• technology

January 22, 2012

Another tool to help re-balance the books

By Davis D. Janowski

Nine years ago, adviser Rich Chambers got frustrated.

• technology

January 15, 2012

Social-media action steps for the New Year

Do you have a business goal for 2012? We'll get to the ways you can incorporate social media into those goals in a minute, but having clearly defined, written goals is the first step. And there's more. Go a few steps beyond simply identifying your goals on paper; take the time to...

• technology

January 15, 2012

A solution for firms using Salesforce

I have mixed feelings about Salesforce.com, a very popular customer relationship management solution. No doubt about it — millions of users in many industries swear by it. However, I think that the solution is a poor fit for many smaller registered investment...

• technology