Wealth management

Bank of America Corp.'s legacy financial advisers are transferring to Merrill Lynch's more expansive brokerage platform.

Independent advisers are still "somewhat conservative" in their outlooks, but their expectations include some bright spots, according to a survey by Charles Schwab.

Although it supports the Securities and Exchange Commission's goal of bringing more disclosure to target-date funds, BlackRock has told the agency that the proposal to include asset-allocation.

When Grail Advisors officially closes two of its active exchange-traded funds — Technology and RP Financials — before the market bell on Aug. 30, the total universe of active ETFs will fall to just 28.

After less than a year, Denise Wypiszenski has stepped down from her job as chief operating officer at Robert W. Baird's private wealth management group.

The court-appointed trustee overseeing the liquidation of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s broker-dealer business said the adoption of a "living will" could have prevented much of the chaos surrounding the company's historic collapse.

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Confidence among high-net-worth investors tumbled in August, according to a monthly survey by Spectrem Group.

The fallout from the financial reform bill is still up in the air, but the wealth management industry expects compliance and service costs to rise.

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As the struggling economy makes saving for college that much harder, parents working with financial advisers are saving more for higher education than those who do not work with planners, according to a new study by Fidelity Investments.

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards says it hopes to bridge the gap between advisers and people in their 20s, who are generally considered atypical financial planning clients.

Bank representatives' productivity rose by a little less than 13% in June, to $25,361 in combined fees and commissions, up from $22,485 in May, according to the Bank Insurance and Securities Association's Monthly Productivity Report.

The majority of 401(k) participants exhibited steady savings behavior in the second quarter, but the number of loans and hardship withdrawals increased, according to data from Fidelity Investments.

Hedge funds started making money again in July, with the Morningstar 1000 Hedge Fund Index up 2.7% over the previous month. The index was up 0.35% year to date, Morningstar said.

Chief financial officers of 20 major European insurers asked that capital rules under the European Union's planned Solvency II capital regime for insurers be more balanced.

For many investors putting money to work in hedge funds, bigger is better, leaving some smaller asset management firms with little alternative but to merge with other funds.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s asset management division is making changes to its North American sales staff, according to a memorandum by George Gatch, the head of the bank's Investment Management Americas unit.

Only a third of advisers have a marketing plan and only a third of that group actively implements it, according to Quantuvis, a Redlands, Calif., practice-management consulting firm owned by Genworth.

Provident Bank's wealth management group is betting that wealthy people are fed up with being nickel-and-dimed by their banks.