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Articles published 11/2015


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Andrei Cherny: I think [UBS execs] really understand that part of the reason Aspiration has seen the type of growth we've seen is because we do things very differently.
November 30, 2015 at 11:49 PM

Steve Lockshin: One is a hammer and the other is a screwdriver.

Why exactly Betterment backers Marty Bicknell and Steve Lockshin became customers of rival robo and custodian TD Ameritrade

What makes the counterintuitive step work is how Jemstep helps round up the mass-affluent's mess of paperwork

November 25, 2015 at 5:55 PM

Julie Riewe: By failing to take steps to verify F-Squared's claims, Virtus solicited investors using materially false and misleading AlphaSector performance data.

SEC leaves little doubt that Virtus knew to be suspicious of what it was selling yet kept those concerns from wholesalers

After concerns were raised Virtus grabbed for earplugs -- a move that made economic sense in retrospect

November 24, 2015 at 7:08 PM

Tom Gooley: We're setting up specialized queues for death, divorce and retirement.

LPL Financial undertakes painstaking overhaul of service spurred by capacity overwhelm and RIA demand for Schwab-style pods

In addition to aggressive hiring, training and creating 'queues,' Tom Gooley and Tim Hodge are tackling the big one -- service culture

November 24, 2015 at 5:51 PM

David Perkins: I've got people coming to work with a smile on their face again and they've got that swagger back.

After selling Hatteras Funds for $40 million last year, the original owner buys it back from scandal-torn RCS for $5.5 million

The 48-employee liquid alts firm just lost its giant distribution arm but manages to keep $1.8 billion of managed assets

November 23, 2015 at 6:47 PM

Vincent C. Gubitosi is the person behind the people behind the robo that will manage Fidelity Go assets.

With RIAs deliberately not in mind, Fidelity Investments launches Fidelity Go, a robo-advisor with the human touch of Vince Gubitosi

The Boston investments firm is using Geode Capital to call the shots, BlackRock as ETF supplier, and its own employees as its initial test subjects

November 20, 2015 at 10:32 PM

David Canter [With Jon Stein, l.,  at June InVest event]: For an RIA firm, this isn't simply a technology play. [Photo by Julio Gomez of Knowledgent]

With eMoney in its back pocket, Fidelity Investments won't exercise its option to continue Betterment deal as it nears launch of its own robo

The one-year semi-exclusive alliance never caught fire with Fidelity RIAs and the Boston giant will now use eMoney as kindling for a new digital-for-RIA launch

November 19, 2015 at 11:47 PM

Tom Kimberly: Incumbent custodians like Charles Schwab and others haven’t kept up.

Betterment hires an RIA chief who reframes the vision from 'robo' to 'one-throat-to-choke' custodian -- and viable Schwab competitor

Fresh off selling Upside to Envestnet, Tom Kimberly is Betterment Institutional's general manager and architect of a new vision

November 19, 2015 at 12:31 AM

Christopher Bray: I've told them I'm not going to roll on this.

Small Florida RIA fights for its name as litigious $10 billion Chicago fund-picker Ariel Investments sues for brand infringement

The founder of $225 million Ariel Capital says he named the firm after his daughter but a Google search already has him wrong-footed with the judge

November 18, 2015 at 5:42 AM

Walt Bettinger: I have bitten my lip until now.

Walt Bettinger unbites his lip and ignites a Schwab IMPACT Twitter squall and the RIA custody show goes on

Tweets connected Schwab CEO remarks to Wealthfront's chippy chief -- red meat to the de facto hometown crowd of advisors

November 16, 2015 at 7:53 PM

Sven Weber: I fear there will be an adverse selection problem. The good companies can get money. The venture firms are lined up three times around the block for them.

The SEC democratizes crowdfunding but RIAs need to guard against clients getting seated at an expanded kids' table

There will be 233 million potential new private equity investors trying to overcome one 'adverse selection' bottleneck

November 13, 2015 at 9:21 PM

Bernie Clark kept his comments in a pep talk framework Tuesday.

9 questions to ask Schwab execs when you buttonhole them in Boston at IMPACT 2015

$23 trillion of AUM is there for the taking -- but how exactly does Schwab propose help RIAs win that discovered bounty?

November 13, 2015 at 12:31 AM

Matt Bayley: They needed to have kept proper records and explained themselves in those records.

Will the alternative assets Intel added to its 401(k) plan backfire legally as well as financially?

New lawsuit alleges that spicing the DC plans with $2.5 billion of bets on de facto dark pools of 'shudder'-worthy alternatives cost participants hundreds of millions of dollars

November 12, 2015 at 8:55 PM

A plethora of definitions and categories must be sorted and so must manipulation of the count.

How many RIAs are there? No, seriously, how many?

Competing counts are full of 'bastardized' definitions of 'advisor,' state vs. SEC- vs. dually registered IARs, differing study criteria and agendas

November 11, 2015 at 7:57 PM

Tim Hockey: I have been able to observe the company, its culture and its operations.

Fred Tomczyk to retire as CEO of TD Ameritrade

The ex-Ivy League hockey star will be replaced by a Canadian Toronto-Dominion Bank exec named Tim Hockey

November 10, 2015 at 7:36 PM

Sallie Krawcheck:  If not me and my team, then who?

'Bristling' at 'pink-it-and-shrink-it' pitfalls, Sallie Krawcheck files an ADV

Ex-Merrill Lynch chief's Ellevest will charge double the Betterment rate but with hopes of better investing for women

November 9, 2015 at 11:58 PM

Bill Sharpe founded Financial Engines so 401(k) participants, with the 1996 ERISA bar set at zippo, got baseline algorithmic attention -- a level of service whose deficiencies were exposed this summer.

How Mutual Fund Store is the real engine now at Financial Engines

Unable to hold 9 million hands as market tanked, Larry Raffone jumped when Warburg Pincus put The Mutual Fund Store on the block

November 6, 2015 at 10:17 PM

Adam Bold: Putting money into a 401(k) isn't enough.

Hitting a robo wall, Financial Engines buys The Mutual Fund Store for $560 million to bust out of 401(k) confines

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based robo colossus needed human advisors, and the radio RIA liked having a non-radio source of new clients

November 5, 2015 at 11:15 PM

Fred Tomczyk: It's getting more competitive. There's no question people have noticed our success.

TD Ameritrade CEO sees RIA custody competitors adjusting to his killer strategy -- even as he whips his in-house RIA into shape

The Jersey City, N.J. custodian's under-the-radar hypergrowth rate is now also big in absolute terms, which may attract unwanted attention from absolute giants

November 5, 2015 at 8:34 PM

Bob Curtis: No one is buying us, so you VC people, don't even bother to call.

In bed with giants, T3 software entrepreneurs go to Florida to swear they are still more independent than thou

MoneyGuidePro's Bob Curtis flipped the bird at potential VC cash-bearers as Fidelity-owned eMoney vowed it was still a scrapper

November 5, 2015 at 7:26 PM

George Aylward: The agreement is subject to review and approval by the Commission and therefore we cannot provide any additional information or answer any questions.

Catching shareholders short, SEC lets Virtus skate with $16.5 million tax-deductible settlement after alleged 'willful blindness'

Observers say the Hartford, Conn.-based mutual fund company turned a blind eye to a fictitious track record but the SEC saw fit to mete out a not-so-big fine

November 4, 2015 at 7:13 PM

Ken Kaltman: Big is better for the client

As RIA compliance complexity explodes, two big outsourcers merge to keep pace

National Compliance Services Inc. is a biggie with smaller RIAs and Regulatory Compliance LLC already provides ultra-handholding that firms increasingly demand

November 3, 2015 at 8:52 PM

Rick Meigs:  We need Schwab in the marketplace and this is a very positive move for Schwab.

RIAs stay the course in holding Schwab to its promise of an RIA-in-charge 401(k) plan with a promising result

Only when RIAs proved they'd only take 'yes' for an answer on open architecture and themselves installed as fiduciaries did their San Francisco-based custodian yield with just a minor Morningstar contingency

November 3, 2015 at 8:07 PM

Matthew Audette: There's not a bunch of balance sheet capital that's necessary.

How hedge fund control and E*Trade's former CFO helped Mark Casady see that making LPL a blue chip was a fool's errand

Matthew Audette concedes that he came to LPL lured by its potential for higher leverage

November 2, 2015 at 10:00 PM

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