Wealth management

In 2001, a client came to financial advisor Bob Frey with a unique dilemma — and a fateful sense of timing.

Mutual funds in the U.S. that focus on bonds have the highest percentage of their assets in cash since 2008, which may temper a rise in yields from about record lows as managers put that money to work.

Under new rules, brokerages will probably have to draw up new disclosures to make clear that they are putting their client's best interests first, a level of responsibility known as a fiduciary standard.

New fee transparency rules for defined-contribution plans are likely to create both more competition and compliance headaches for brokers who advise the plans.

A stellar track record has helped make the PIMCO Total Return fund one of the most popular retirement investments in the U.S., featured on thousands of 401(k) plans.

Many mutual funds, especially index funds, are designed to resemble the market as a whole, so the government's decision to borrow trillions has prompted them to buy more and more Treasury bonds.

The lightly regulated registered investment advisor industry may offer few protections for investors who wind up with incompetent advisors.

Some states are trimming the tax due on estates or inheritances when someone dies, while others are raising them. Even more change is coming, complicating estate planners' efforts to preserve as much wealth as possible.

A survey of registered investment advisors' use of social media shows a wide gap between regulation and reality, at least at smaller firms.

The ruling didn't give specifics of Kipple's allegations, but he alleged in regulatory filings that Wells Fargo terminated him for "truthfully responding to a regulatory inquiry" by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Wall Street's self-policing watchdog, in 2009.

The service, supported by call centers and the bank's branches, came in last in a J.D. Power and Associates study released June 30 on self-directed investor satisfaction, and it also has ranked low in earlier surveys.

Independent registered investment advisors seem to be having a good post-recession period, but gains have come at a cost in terms of more work and less pay.

Advisors looking for cost-effective options for building diversified portfolios are continuing to turn to exchange-traded funds. And given their competitive strengths, it's no wonder ETF assets in the U.S. grew at nearly 40% compound annual growth rate from 1998 to 2009. ETF assets now total almost $1 trillion and represent 45% of total passive fund assets in the United States.

Brick Sturgeon remembers his "lightbulb moment." His clients were two middle-aged sisters who had inherited $500,000 from their father. Two years after his death, however, the money still sat in their father's accounts.

The nation's largest independent broker-dealer, LPL recently signed a contract with a social media compliance service and has signed up 1,000 advisors to use sites including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. It is adding about 100 more each week, said Andy Kalbaugh, executive vice president of business consulting at LPL Financial.

Congress may hand oversight of almost 12,000 investment advisors to Wall Street's self-funded regulator as a cost-saving measure. The price could be paid by investors.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. reached an agreement on a $65 billion liquidation plan with derivatives creditors including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and bondholders led by the hedge fund Paulson & Co., ending a dispute that threatened to delay its exit from bankruptcy.

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The European debt crisis would pose a threat to U.S. money market mutual funds if a rash of sovereign defaults caused big banks to fail to meet obligations within the next three months.

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