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Articles published 9/2014


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Kyle Ryan:  Everyone looks at headlines and says they're small and everyone was small once.

The steps Personal Capital is taking to win bigger accounts after a year of 100% growth and 95% of them small fish

Sep 29, 2014

This call center advisor is handing out free iPads to its wealthiest clients along with bulk pricing and concierge services that include two human advisors per family


RIAs got their first direct splash of Gross's eccentric behavior at Morningstar's Investors Conference in June.

The real Bill Gross story with big help from the Wall Street Journal's reporting (Hint: The signs were there)

Sep 26, 2014

The humbled Bond King goes to an equity shop with a shove from PIMCO, a DoubleLine query and diminished options, WSJ reports


April Rudin: In one instance a client realized how important his LinkedIn profile could be after a journalist cherry-picked facts from it for an article about his firm after he'd offered a 'no comment.'

Dissecting the pathology of UHNW wealth managers who want brand building without marketing

Sep 26, 2014

Iconoclastic, clubby and referral-oriented ways still attract the ultra-rich -- but a sleek LinkedIn page might be what Gens X, Y, millennials and hip boomers demand


Mike Golaszewski: Since most of the Internet is exposed to this bug, your information could potentially leak in unexpected ways.

How RIAs should digest warnings about 'Shell Shock' and its lethal threat to all things Linux

Sep 25, 2014

On a scale of one to 10 the just-disclosed computer 'exploit' is a 10 because Linux is what the cloud lives by


Bill Dwyer: When I met Nick it reminded me of a similar presence ...(Todd Robinson). Lightning strikes twice.

What exactly enticed Bill Dwyer out of retirement to work on the other side

Sep 25, 2014

The former LPL leader takes a spot vacated by Larry Roth at RCS Capital that involves selling to advisors


What FPA's chief sponsor MetLife pays isn't peanuts but Snoopy is.

An advertiser's-eye view of what the new-look FPA looked like in Seattle

Sep 24, 2014

The Denver-based association showed signs of diminished draw but mostly offset by a stunning presence of youth and start-up exhibitors


Jeff Ramseyer: My joining Addepar signals the company's successful growth trajectory, not a shift in strategy.

Addepar hires in the direction of revenues -- and maybe even an IPO

Sep 23, 2014

The mature start-up adds an ex-Advent sales chief a year after hiring a CFO with a nose for initial public offerings


Adam Nash [with Andy Rachleff]: Wealthfront automatically ensures that every withdrawal minimizes the taxes owed and keeps your portfolio balanced.

Wealthfront's advice is now an employee benefit for Google employees' non-401(k) savings

Sep 23, 2014

Employees at the search giant with less than $100,000 get their balances managed for free -- as do employees of the San Francisco 49ers and Palantir


Stephen Brown writes: We advise several CEO's and CFO's of Fortune 500 companies, as well as some professional sports teams.

How Merrill Lynch's divorce of its own $2.5-billion team shows just how fed up the wirehouse is with RIA-bound breakaways

Sep 22, 2014

The sudden pick-up in these seemingly self-defeating dismissals by Wall Street firms suggest new vigilance against gradual breakaways


Jack Waymire: Our cause for concern was the number of advisors who did not appear to have accessible compliance records.

Can advisors keep their dirty compliance laundry in the closet thanks to lack of NASAA, SEC and FINRA coordination?

Sep 19, 2014

Mostly not but Jack Waymire and Brian Hamburger flesh out the issue with the right questions and answers


Cup holders, like robo-capability, matter whether or not they should.

How the new RIA competition is akin to the cup-holder dilemma for automakers

Sep 18, 2014

Many robo-innovations are superficial but are nonetheless looked for by investors as a sign of substance


A congressman, an engineer, an airline pilot and a court reporter walk into a fiduciary conference...

TD Ameritrade pulls off amazing Summit in DC that reveals rot to the core of SEC, FINRA and ERISA system

Sep 18, 2014

A consumer panel sobered the crowd off the bat with war stories and then Ron Rhoades, Mercer Bullard, David Tittsworth, Sheryl Garrett, Tom Nally, Marilyn Mohrman-Gillis and others pulled no punches


Joe Mrak: Envestnet tried to get more into our market and we're going to go right after them.

Philly buyer lays down a cool $199 million in cash to buy FolioDynamix, the better to put Envestnet firmly in its sights

Sep 17, 2014

The 'it' factor of the 2007 start-up was its revamped Sungard orphan software with LPL, Pershing and Cetera as anchors


Greg Friedman: In just the first six weeks of general release, we have over 80 firms and 500 users.

At Junxure confab No. 2, Friedman kvells about his 6-week-old Cloud and announces closer ties with Pershing

Sep 17, 2014

Mark Tibergien was on hand to cement the Junxure-Pershing connection -- and to call baloney on Joe Duran's Cassandra-like forecast for RIAs



Being heedless of competitors is dangerous but crying wolf has its own perils.

Why Joe Duran is dead wrong on 2015 marking the end of the Golden Era of the RIA

Sep 15, 2014

The serial entrepeneur's column in InvestmentNews forgets that RIAs are also advancing and that the 'new competitors' carry baggage and have fatal shortcomings


Ken Fisher has been trying to tell anyone who would listen.

The documented RIA threat, 'phono-advisors' and their nearly $300 billion of assets

Sep 12, 2014

Not much romantic about call center-based advisors but under banners like Vanguard, Fisher Investments or Merrill Edge, they are a force to be reckoned with


Peter Hess: I am extremely optimistic that we can close that gap to greatness.

Peter Hess delivers Advent Direct specifics at AdventConnect as Dave Welling wows with Black Diamond's cloud advance

Sep 11, 2014

RIAs on a market high absorbed Advent Software's efforts to press skyward under rainy Las Vegas skies


Ed Murphy: It hasn't led to a pause on the part of our prospects.

Bob Reynolds delegates the Great-West 401(k) business to old Fidelity mate after excruciating three-way choice

Sep 10, 2014

Edmund Murphy, kicked upstairs, is dispatched from Boston to Denver and will own the brand decision -- just for starters


Tony Hallada: They'll be far beyond in two years where they are today.

Envestnet-Tamarac wins four more RIAs with an average of $5 billion of AUM by selling a vision

Sep 10, 2014

The Seattle-based firm signs on CliftonLarsonAllen Wealth Advisors, Beacon Pointe Advisors, Convergent and Freestone


Bob Reynolds: We're going to run the businesses together as one company.

Bob Reynolds does 'a lot of testing' to avoid foisting his 'Great West' brand on JP Morgan and Putnam Investments clientele

Sep 9, 2014

The chief executive also sees upside opportunities in bringing all three divisions under one banner


Abby Salameh: There is no good place for emoticons in a professional relationship.

5 ways for RIAs to avoid social media and 'holistic' wealth management overreaches in a share-happy e-world

Sep 9, 2014

Being Facebook 'friends' and dealing with a client's non-financial life decisions does not take the 'business' out of the business relationship equation


David J. Dunn: We like fundamental investments that have inherent value.

How Bitcoin is penetrating RIA portfolios by looking riskier to ignore than embrace

Sep 8, 2014

Dangers remain but security, acceptability and upside all seem to have evolved just in the past few months, experts say


Eric Cantor: The new model of independent banks offering conflict-free advice, in a smaller more intimate environment, was a place where I knew my skills could help clients succeed.

How the Eric Cantor hire is really all about Ken Moelis, an original Wall Street 'Wolf', and his $963-million non-classic RIA

Sep 5, 2014

A former Robin to Mike Milken's Batman at Drexel Burnham pays chump change by Wall Street standards to get the politician aboard


Andrew Stoltmann: Schwab has always been the big-eyed doe sitting off on the sidelines.

After Morgan Stanley 'raided' Schwab branch in San Francisco, Schwab fought in FINRA 'court' and lost, but perhaps won on the larger level

Sep 4, 2014

The San Francisco-based $2.4-trillion broker still isn't swallowing the loss and sent a clear message that it will battle tirelessly


Mike Golaszewski: With the right combination of hardware and software, most eight-character passwords can be brute-forced.

With your RIA practice as naked as Kirstin and Kate in the cloud, know two words: Google Authenticator

Sep 4, 2014

With advisors migrating their practices online, the vulnerability can't be overstated or easier to address


Jerry Chafkin: The old [formula for managing investment risk] is less than fully baked.

AssetMark keeps to the ex-Schwab theme, tapping Jerry Chafkin as chief investment officer

Sep 3, 2014

After a prolonged search, Charles Goldman hires the former CEO of $240-billion AUM Natixis, president of Charles Schwab Investment Management and Yalie


Sterling Shea: One day we may have an advisor from Edelman Financial on the list rather than Ric himself.

Getting inside Barron's Top-100-Advisor lists with some help from Sterling Shea

Sep 3, 2014

As the scrutinized lists expands and evolves, the Dow Jones newsweekly is striving to parse better from bigger -- all while keeping a promise to Rupert Murdoch


Joe Duran: What we've done is incredibly rare.

Joe Duran explains United Capital's 100% revenue growth to $100 million since 2012 and the firm's complex plan to grow faster

Sep 2, 2014

In an overdue catch-all, catch-up the CEO of the $10-billion RIA tells of $4 billion of deals in the works and up to 15 de novo offices


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