General Finance News

Michael Kitces, Partner and Director of Research, Pinnacle Advisory Group

One of the original founders of NextGen, 34-year-old Michael Kitces not only holds a bevy of financial planning credentials, but the third edition of the book he co-authored, “The Advisor Guide to Annuities,” is due out in May, and he’s burning up the blogosphere offering insights on the industry’s hottest topics.

Kitces, partner and director of research at Pinnacle Advisory Group in Columbia, Md., and publisher of the The Kitces Report and the blog Nerd’s Eye View, says that over the next year or so, advisors will continue to struggle with the “really difficult market environment.” Kitces says he worries that advisors are in danger of experiencing what he calls the “three strikes and you’re out” risk, which is the real possibility that “if clients have to go through a third bear market in just over a decade, advisors are going to start losing clients.”

Advisors and their clients “weathered the storm from 2000 to 2002 and then another [bear market] from 2008 to 2009, but there comes a point where clients start to capitulate,” Kitces says.

What are gaining in appeal among advisors, he says, are more active strategies. Statistics from the Financi

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Foxconn has given in to global PR. The manufacturer which does a great deal of work for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) will increase worker salaries and lower hours worked. The Fair Labor Association, which stepped for Apple when it was criticized for Foxconn ”quality of life” work conditions, issued a report critical of the manufacturer. The New Yo

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Strawberry Frappuccinos are a summertime favorite at Starbucks (SBUX). Too bad word’s out that the lovely strawberry color is actually derived from “cochineal extract” — dried, crushed bug carcasses. Talk about a buzzkill.

A Change.org petition has helped spread the word that cochineal extract poses a major problem for vegans, since consuming crushed bugs certainly doesn’t adhere to the vegan diet.

Starbucks has owned up to the whole “Barista, there’s a bug in my frappuccino” brouhaha, defending cochineal extract as a natural ingredient. According to Gannett News Service, Starbucks spokesman Jim Olson said, “… the strawberry base for our Strawberries & Creme Frappuccino does contain cochineal extract, a common natural dye that is used in the food industry, and it helps us move away from artificial ingredients.”

That’s definitely not Red Dye No.

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Over the next few posts, I will be discussing what I view to be the three primary systems of an advisory business. Just as the body has a circulatory system, a nervous system, and many others, a business can be parsed in similar fashion. As an independent advisor, the challenge is to spend an adequate amount of time on each. The three systems are: marketing, service, and operations. In this post, I will briefly cover each with the intent of taking a deeper dive over the ensuing weeks. I hope to bring you some very actionable steps which will help you in your practice. 

Primary System No. 1: Marketing

Many view this as the most important system. Truth is, you can be the best practitioner in the world, but if you don’t continue to add new clients, you have a good chance of failing.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New orders for manufactured goods rose less than expected in February and a gauge of future business investment also fell short of forecasts, Commerce Department data showed on Wednesday.

Durable goods orders rose 2.2 percent last month, only partially reversing Januarys revised 3.6 percent decline.

Economists had forecast orders rising 3.0 percent last month.

Durable goods range from toasters to big-ticket items like aircraft which are meant to last three years and more.

Excluding transportation, orders climbed 1.6 percent. Economists had expected that reading to increase 1.7 percent.

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Communications chip maker Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) has agreed to acquire privately held BroadLight Inc. for $195 million in a transaction that is essentially all-cash except for certain unvested BroadLight options. There is an additional $10 million earn-out provided certain performance conditions are met.

BroadLight, which is incorporated in the US and operates in Israel, makes “highly integrated networking and fiber access PON (Passive Optical Network) processors.” Broadcom believes the acquisition puts the company in a better position to take advantage of the forecast for explosive growth in demand for high-bandwidth communications.

Broadcom expects the acquisition to be revenue-neutral in the 2012 fiscal year. Bro

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When you are looking to obtain savings rates, privacy is an important factor. A Website sponsoring organisations that provide the best savings rates privacy regulationsshould be up to your standards. This means that all the information that you acquire or send in through their Website should be 100 % secure.

If you cannot trust a Website that provides information about organisations offering the best savings rates, how can you trust them with your personal information? While no Website can actually promise that all of your information will be secure, they should at least be able to make reasonable efforts to protect the information that you send in through them.

After all, these people are using the Website to obtain information about the best savings rates provided through companies. Read more…

A Which? survey found that a Halifax debit card customer will pay £6.67 for a £5 bottle of wine in a French supermarket, more than other high street banks. The Fees for using a debit card from a current account overseas are “exorbitant” and confusing, according to a sector report from consumer watchdog Which?

Some banks and building societies are charging a third more than others for foreign transactions, based on the same Eu5.95 debit card purchase and Eu20 cash withdrawal with The Halifax and Natwest having the highest charges. The watchdog found that Norwich & Peterborough’s Gold Light current account came out on top, since customers are not charged any fees for overseas use. Halifax charged 33pc more than N&P – with the purchaser spending £6.67 on a £5.03 bottle of wine in a French supermarket. Using the N&P card, the purchase cost £5.03. The watchdog also tested the cards by withdrawing Eu20 from a BNP Paribas cash machine in France in December. Lloyds TSB customers ended up paying £19.43 for £16.92 of cash, whereas N&P customers paid £16.92. NatWest was also expensive, with the supermarket purchase costing £6.42 and the cash withdrawal totalling £19.39. A general confusion over the fees and withdrawal charges was also highlighted Customers spending overseas often find it hard to work out which card is the best value because there are a variety of different charges applied.

These include a foreign exchange loading fee, which is usually a percentage of the transaction, as well as a purchase transaction fee when you buy something in a supermarket, which is usually a flat charge. If you take money out of a cash machine, you are sometimes charged a withdrawal fee as well as a foreign exchange loading fee. Which? experts also said that they found it difficult to calculate how the foreign loading fees had been calculated using the bank statements alone. HSBC, Halifax and Lloyds TSB included their foreign loading fee as part of the exchange rate. Santander showed only the exchange rate with no mention of the foreign loading fee, even though it had charged one. Which? executive director, Richard Lloyd, said “Banks are charging exorbitant fees for the most straightforward overseas transactions, pushing up the price of even the most basic purchases. The issue of overseas charges is just one of the things that we want the new financial regulator to tackle. It must act as a watchdog for consumers to make sure they aren’t exposed to what we believe are unfair charges.