The insurance industry predicts a new boom in variable annuities as tax deferral takes the spotlight in the near future, but financial advisers and broker-dealers aren't convinced that this will help products fly off the shelves again.
Another key executive with the ING Advisors Network Inc. has stepped down, as the network's parent, ING Groep NV, continues an evaluation of the broker-dealers that could lead to their sale.
The Insured Retirement Institute last week chose James A. Shepherdson, executive vice president of Axa Equitable, as the group's chairman.
Buddy Rogers, who officially tossed his hat into the ring last week for a U.S. Senate seat in Arkansas, thinks that there is one important constituency that need a stronger voice in Congress right now: the financial advisory community.
I recently cleaned out some old files in my home office and pulled out some account statements from 2000.
Registered investment advisers last year reduced their asset management fees to the lowest level in 10 years, according to Rydex/SGI's annual Advisor Benchmarking Study.
Although a House Financial Services subcommittee plans to discuss adviser issues at a hearing on Oct. 6, it's unlikely Congress will debate the fine points of adopting a fiduciary standard for all financial advisers.
Fidelity Investments said this morning it is expanding its clearing business into Canada, with the intention of serving U.S. broker-dealers looking for a toehold in the market, while also targeting Canadian broker-dealers.
The United States faces greater systemic risk today than it did a year ago, according to economist Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate and professor at Columbia University's graduate business school.
National ratings agencies received criticism yesterday at a meeting of the insurance industry for their failure to properly rate residential mortgage-backed securities prior to the crisis.
The stock market's rally has reawakened the initial public offerings market, with five IPOs being launched yesterday and at least three more scheduled for this week.
About 270 registered reps and advisers are scrambling for a new broker-dealer to park their licenses after being notified just yesterday that their firm — Colonial Brokerage Inc. — will be shut down in November, according to sources both inside and outside of Colonial.
The nation's economic recovery has just begun and "we still have work to do," a senior Treasury official told Congress on Thursday, the strongest signal yet that the administration is prepared to extend its $700 billion bank bailout fund.
Regulators and legislators clashed with members of the life settlements industry at a congressional hearing today that focused on the risks and merits of life settlements securitization.
A CEO of one of the independent brokerage shops told me a story the other day.
The Virginia College Savings Plan, the nation's largest Section 529 plan with over $23 billion in assets, will offer a fixed-income investment option nationally on BB&T Corp.'s online platform, beginning later this year.
A former broker at Prudential Securities Inc. charged with fraudulently trading mutual funds for millions of dollars in commissions has been sentenced to two months in a halfway house.
