BUSINESS
By EILEEN AMBROSE | April 13, 2008
You're looking for someone to help manage your life savings in retirement. Surely an adviser with a "senior" designation, like a registered super-duper senior consultant, must be up to the job, right? Not really. There are all sorts of designations cropping up. Many of them have the word "senior" in them, implying that the person has expertise in the needs of older investors. But too often these designations are meaningless marketing tools used to earn the trust of older investors who are then pitched high-cost, unsuitable investments.
BUSINESS
By McClatchy-Tribune | January 7, 2007
If you're looking to hire a financial planner or adviser, you're making a decision that likely will affect your entire life. And the vast array of choices can make the decision mind-boggling. Anyone can call himself a financial planner, says Jack Waymire, author of Who's Watching Your Money? So don't assume that having a certain title ensures skill or expertise. You also want to be objective - don't let a planner or adviser's personality or sales skills affect your decision. You want to objectively consider three factors: credentials, ethics and business practices.
NEWS
By FRANK D. ROYLANCE and FRANK D. ROYLANCE,SUN REPORTER | April 18, 2006
Robert Hooper Smith, an investment adviser in Baltimore and a skilled watercolor painter, died of complications from prostate cancer April 10 at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Baltimore. He was 78. Born in Baltimore, Mr. Smith graduated from the Calvert School in 1938. He then attended the Middlesex School, a boarding school in Concord, Mass., but left in 1944 to join the Navy. He entered the Naval Reserve in 1945 and served as a pharmacist's mate third class in East Coast military hospitals until he left the service in 1947.
BUSINESS
By Jay Hancock | May 1, 2005
ONLY 213 YEARS after the New York Stock Exchange's founding, the government has added regulation requiring many brokers to say this before they take your money: "Our interests may not always be the same as yours." No kidding! Besides enjoying commissions on stock and bond trades whether or not the trades help your portfolio, brokerages often receive what amount to legal kickbacks from sellers of mutual funds, variable annuities and other products. A broker might be tempted to sell you a mediocre fund with a big referral fee instead of a great fund with no fee. No, his interest is not the same as yours.
BUSINESS
By Tom Petruno and Tom Petruno,LOS ANGELES TIMES | February 19, 2005
Allegations that American Funds arranged improper sales deals with brokers are posing a quandary for financial advisers, who have helped make the Los Angeles firm the nation's most popular mutual fund company in recent years. After 17 months of revelations that have rocked the fund industry, some advisers say it's difficult to find high-quality companies that haven't had their reputations sullied. "Quite honestly, where else do you go?" asked Emerson Fersch, a principal at Capital Investment Advisers in Long Beach, Calif.
BUSINESS
By Andrew Leckey | October 24, 2004
Americans sometimes fib about how long it takes them to get to work, their weight, their age, their drinking habits, how much TV they watch and whether they ate dessert last night. So it's hardly a stretch to accept that they would fib to a financial adviser about their income, savings or investments. Maybe they don't want anyone else to know their business. Maybe they want to seem like high rollers. Maybe they can't be honest with themselves or anyone else about how much money they're capable of saving or investing.