Frances McMorris

The tools are essential to enhance client interaction and help the operations staff.

Tim Ryan says focus should be on moving forward with Dodd-Frank and addressing the fiscal cliff.

Advisors can calm clients who wanted a Romney victory.

The uncertainty has vanished with the re-election of Barack Obama as president. But the incumbent who won a second term last night still has a number of problems that he continues to face – from a sluggish economic recovery, a huge deficit, a stubbornly high unemployment rate and of course, the fiscal cliff.

As Hurricane Sandy bears down on the East Coast, people in the path of this storm are preparing, but are they prepared for its aftermath, when the life and property damage has to be assessed?

Mitt Romney “has the momentum and nothing last night happened to change that,” said Charles Black, a Romney campaign advisor at the SIFMA annual meeting in New York.

The advisory industry has been fretting about the impending tsunami of retiring advisors in the coming years for some time. As a result, firms are assembling succession programs as a way to ease the transition of client assets from older advisors to the much younger set.

Firms come and firms go, but there has to be a bit of nostalgia for Smith Barney.

It's the end of an era. Morgan Stanley announced its U.S. wealth management business, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, has changed its name to Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.

Firms need to foster real loyalty between themselves and their investor-clients, especially if advisors continue to leave, says Arthur Levitt, the former chairman of the SEC.