Inside Information

Now that the Supercommittee has failed to reach agreement, deficit cuts become automatic. [Read more »] 

What does Iran's efforts to build a nuclear weapon really mean to the global economy? [Read more »] 

The best of the contributed articles in the November issue of the Journal of Financial Planning starts an important debate around creating that all-important symbiotic relationship between the planning profession and its related academia. There are now hundreds of college programs around the country offering some form of training, including advanced degrees, in financial planning, and on the professional side, what profession doesn't rely heavily on the research provided by the colleges?

The question, of course, is how to make that happen.

I also liked the piece on cloud-based storage by Bill Winterberg. [Read more »] 

The deficit reduction debate takes a new--and automated-turn. [Read more »] 

Is the Middle East on the brink of another military confrontation? [Read more »] 

A panel discussion offered remarkable insights into the investment markets and the current state of the economy. [Read more »] 

In this issue of Financial Advisor, editor Evan Simonoff offers a peek into an interesting issue that will have implications around the profession: advisors are financing their succession plans with loans from their custodians, who at least have to hope that they'll retain the business of the successors. Dan Moisand asks us to come up with more precise definitions of market timing and rebalancing, and Joel Bruckenstein looks at some software features you probably haven't heard of before. [Read more »] 

The "Let Go to Grow" cover article in this month's issue of Investment Advisor is one of the best practice management articles you'll read all year--research by Angie Herbers into the kind of office environment where employees thrive and contribute to the bottom line. Better yet, she outlines the key elements of that environment clearly and with depth.

Meanwhile, we learn why so few insurance companies are buying independent broker-dealers these days (It's hard to get the reps to sell their proprietary products, even though apparently there are still legal ways to try), and Mark Tibergien argues for a quieter, gentler way to get your staff to do what you need--which fits nicely with Herbers' recommendations. [Read more »]