Led by record demand for registered index-linked annuities, total third-quarter annuity sales rose 11% year over year to $89.4 billion, according to preliminary results from Limra’s U.S. Individual Annuity Sales Survey. Limra said RILA sales hit a new record in the third quarter of $12.6 billion, up 19% from the...
Rudy Adolf, founder and CEO of Focus Financial Partners, will be retiring at the end of the year, the firm announced Monday. Adolf will be succeeded immediately by the chairman of the company’s board, Dan Glaser, who has been appointed interim CEO. Glaser is also an operating partner at...
Get ready, advisors! Goldman Sachs is stepping back into the RIA space. Not that it ever really left. Following months of gossip about the future of its investment advisor business, Goldman Sachs finally ended all the speculation in august by announcing the sale of its Personal Financial Management unit to Creative...
Prior to taking the top job at Hightower Advisors in 2019, Bob Oros was a financial industry veteran, having climbed the executive ranks at Schwab, LPL Financial and Fidelity. But that wasn’t the only buzz he was making at the time. He was also a partner in a regional craft...
To paraphrase a line from “Hamlet”: To itemize or to take the standard deduction? That is the question. Okay, maybe it’s not exactly Shakespeare, but it is a question frequently posed by clients to their financial advisors. A greatest hit, right up there with: “When should I take my required...
Even on Wall Street, there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing. And that goes double when it comes to stock ownership across a client’s portfolio. With an estimated 3,000 ETFs available in the U.S., stock overlap simply can’t be prevented. For example, even if a financial...
A new Goldman Sachs survey shows investors are big fans of separately managed accounts. But what do advisors think of them? Are they worth the trouble for all their clients, or just a lucky few? “I have used SMAs and found them to be very beneficial due to several factors,...
Medicare participants waiting to hear how much their premiums would increase next year learned their fate early this year. On Thursday, the more than 66 million people enrolled in Medicare were informed about their Medicare Part B premiums, which are usually deducted from Social Security benefits. Generally the adjustment...
A new study shows Gen Z workers are itching to retire at age 61. If that’s the case, they have a lot of hurdles to clear. According to Charles Schwab’s annual nationwide survey of 401(k) plan participants released Thursday, Gen Z employees, or those who are 21 to 26 years...
Legendary investing guru Peter Lynch popularized the idea of investing in what you know and what you see with your own two eyes. So when financial advisors view the half-empty office buildings right in front of them, should they also be seeing an investment opportunity for their clients? The commercial...