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Dodd-Frank: What it means for sales of proprietary products
During the busy fall conference season for financial professionals, virtually every agenda includes coverage of issues associated with regulatory reform and the extension of the fiduciary standard to brokers and dealers who provide advice to retail investors
The role of a fiduciary is timeless
As required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission has begun a six-month study of the regulation of brokers under the fair-dealing standard and advisers under the fiduciary standard.
For fiduciary backers, fight not over
An important milestone has been reached on the path to the professionalization of financial advice with the inclusion of language in the financial-reform bill which would authorize the SEC to issue rules to extend the fiduciary standard to broker-dealers providing advice to retail clients.
Goldman proves need for higher standards
While getting pilloried in hearings before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, representatives from The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. characterized their firm as a market maker, denied that they had fiduciary status, and displayed apparent bewilderment at the senators' questions about legal or ethical obligations to place clients' interests first.
Level fees are right way to avoid conflicts
The investment advice regulation for 401(k) plans recently released by the Labor Department offers more than proposed guidelines for making advice available to retirement plan participants.
‘I pledge to be your fiduciary’
In a speech at the 2010 Investment Adviser Compliance Forum, Elisse Walter, a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, expressed strong support for the extension of the fiduciary standard for financial professionals, calling it “critical to comprehensive investor protection.”
Prudence involves more than conduct
“Prudence” seems like an old-fashioned word with a stodgy connotation, but for fiduciaries, it is a timeless concept with significant implications.
Let’s say goodbye to 12(b)-1 fees
If ever there were a time to kill 12(b)-1 fees, that time is now.
Time to focus on target date fund reform
Rather than focusing on past deficiencies in target date funds, the Senate Special Committee on Aging's recent hearing on the funds focused on how they can be turned around quickly.
The four stages of an annual review
As the year draws to a close, fiduciaries should be turning their attention to one of their most important responsibilities: the annual portfolio review.
Group aims to influence reform
The Committee for the Fiduciary Standard is an organization that every investor and financial professional should know about.
B-D reps will reap benefits of reform
In the lexicon of regulatory reform, “harmonization” is a key word.
The process of picking a co-fiduciary
By definition, prudence involves the exercise of skill and good judgment in the use of resources. It is a core fiduciary duty.
It’s time to rethink retirement plans
An investment fiduciary's duty of loyalty demands that the investor's best interests guide the decision-making process.
SEC’s Aguilar urges fiduciary standard
In my last Fiduciary Corner column, I wrote about the significant benefits that would result if, as a result of regulatory reform, all who provide financial advice — including broker-dealer representatives — are held to the fiduciary standard of care established under current laws.
How a ‘universal’ fiduciary standard would change how financial advisers do business
Some time ago, a reporter asked me a simple yet profound question: “If everyone providing investment advice were held to a fiduciary standard of care, how would things be different than they are today?”
For fiduciaries, loyalty is everything
Woodrow Wilson may have been right when he said, "Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice."
Time to embrace fiduciary standard
A consensus is forming that financial regulatory reform should include provisions to require anyone providing advice to adhere to a fiduciary standard of care.
Don’t dance around principles
I want to offer four reasons why the Department of Labor should rescind a class exemption that would…
What we can learn from Madoff
Bernard Madoff was able to pull off what is allegedly the largest investor fraud in history because people trusted him.
