Wealth management

Elderly investors have the most to lose — literally, in terms of assets — if they start losing cognitive abilities.

Just the idea is daunting: How to sell an advisory practice that may have taken you a lifetime to build.

Trusts are starting to put more of their money into hedge funds and other alternative investments, as heirs exercise more sway over these assets and state laws allow using outside investment managers.

Inertia is a powerful force in potential clients, and one that financial advisers must find a way to overcome.

A bid by the hedge fund Paulson & Co. to force Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. creditors to disclose trades in the defunct firm's debt is a "fishing expedition" meant to "intimidate," according to debtholders such as Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and the German central bank.

Morgan Stanley, owner of the world's largest brokerage, could shut down its trading businesses and the company would be worth 28% more than Thursday's share price, according to Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

Charles Schwab Corp. customers with Android smartphones can now deposit checks into their bank and brokerage accounts.

The private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. is pursuing a minority investment in ING Group NV's U.S. online bank, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Financial advisers' pasts have always been able to haunt them, thanks to rules that give the public access to records of disciplinary troubles and legal scrapes. Now new rules will push those skeletons even further out of the closet.

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ING announced on Tuesday that it has expanded its fiduciary service offerings to help sponsors better fulfill their responsibilities under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (Erisa).

RBC Wealth Management would like to see its 2,000-plus U.S. brokers raise their individual annual production to US$1 million, a target the head of its wealth unit sees as reachable in five years.

Most new financial advisers are encouraged to find a niche and develop expertise in handling a certain type of client. That expertise should lead to more clients and an efficient, prosperous practice.

An arbitration panel has ruled that certain comments regarding a broker's termination from Banc of America Investment Services Inc. in 2009 be expunged from his record.

Citizens Financial Group Inc. is taking a page from Hollywood in its test of in-branch videoconferencing. But the movie-star touch isn't the high-definition video screens — it's the pens used to sign important documents.

The accounts, which go by the acronym UMA, combine a mix of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and another vehicle called a separately managed account, which typically holds a portfolio of individual stocks and bonds selected by a professional money manager.

When Kathy Stepp started her fee-only practice in 1992, the certified financial planner and certified public accountant saw her Overland Park, Kan., practice growing into something bigger than a one-woman shop. Exactly how, she wasn't sure.

U.S. insurers' sales of variable annuities rose 24% in the first quarter, led by policies that promise lifetime income and protect against market drops, at a time when investors are still wary of stocks.

The compliance officer at Wunderlich Securities Inc. was well familiar with the rules for running a brokerage. That wasn't enough, however, to keep him and his firm out of serious regulatory trouble.