Wealth management

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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Bond ladders or bond funds? For retirement investing, it's often been one approach or the other. Both have pros and cons.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has caught the spotlight — and some scrutiny — with its strategy to give advisors more access to social media.

Vanguard and TIAA-CREF stand out in terms of offering research and trades via mobile devices, according to Corporate Insight.

Banks are offering consumers as much as a 6% return on certain U.S. checking accounts, a Bankrate.com survey found.

Bank of America's Andrew Sieg, head of retirement services, will now also lead its global investment solutions unit as Kunal Kamlani steps down and leaves the company.

ING Group NV's U.S. retirement division is attempting to pursue small and midsize defined contribution business through the banking channel and with a convenience payroll strategy.

The Financial Planning Coalition, a group that includes several organizations representing thousands of financial advisors, last week released a copy of a petition it sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission, asking the regulatory agency to extend the definition of fiduciary standard to include "anyone providing personalized investment advice to retail clients."

The money stream is flowing again. After two years of stagnant or shrinking revenue, the 50 largest independent broker-dealers reported that annual revenues rebounded last year.