Advisors archive
Every Advisors story, newest first. 889 stories
2 stories
- Products & portfolios
Franklin Templeton's Stanhope puts alpha ahead of tax in long-short
He says advisors who lead with harvesting risk client disappointment as direct indexing accounts carry embedded gains.
- The Advisor's Note
Merrill raises 2027 growth-award bar to $7.5M and 4 net households
The core grid stays flat, and the $150 million Elite Award becomes three categories paying a 50% premium.
29 stories
- Practice management
Vanguard auto-enrolls $1 million–$10 million clients in Flagship
The letters went out last week; outside funds held at Vanguard now count toward the $1 million minimum.
- Practice management
SEC approves FINRA rule letting broker-dealers market projected returns
The approval creates a conditional exception to Rule 2210's ban on performance projections, after NASAA said it could not support the change without stronger investor-protection guardrails.
- Practice management
Merrill raises 2027 growth-award bar to $7.5 million and a net four new households
The firm leaves its core grid unchanged and replaces the $150 million Elite Award with three categories that each pay a 50% premium to the growth award.
- Products & portfolios
Blackstone private wealth AUM hits $330B as distributable earnings fall 9%
The firm raised nearly $9 billion across its private wealth platform in the third quarter, while BCRED redemption requests stayed elevated.
- Recruiting & transitions
Merrill to add targeted 2027 advisor bonuses, keeps core grid
Financial Planning reported the firm will hold its basic compensation grid in place while seeking to boost recruiting.
- Products & portfolios
Evergreen fund auction could offer an exit when redemptions are prorated
March unsolicited tenders for oversubscribed private credit BDC shares averaged a 26% discount and drew little interest, per WealthManagement.com.
- Tax & estate planning
Treasury and IRS replace retirement plan correction framework and create IRA correction program
Revenue Procedure 2026-34 is effective today; Revenue Procedure 2026-33 begins May 1, 2027.
- Practice management
EP Wealth's Brian Parker says organic growth drives firm value, not deal metrics
On an RIA Edge panel, Snowden Lane's Alison Burkett described growth as every employee's job and tied it to better client service rather than a sales push.
- Products & portfolios
ACORE Capital launches advisor wealth platform led by Mick Manning
The $17 billion real estate manager will offer real estate credit and equity strategies to high-net-worth clients through financial advisors.
- Tax & estate planning
Higher rates can cut closely held business valuations and open an estate-gift window
A lower supportable fair market value lets an owner move more ownership out of the estate while using less lifetime gift and estate tax exemption, though company facts still drive the appraisal.
- Products & portfolios
Morningstar backs Vanguard VXUS on low fee and 8,500-stock index
Analysts attribute much of the fund's 67-basis-point five-year edge over its average foreign large-blend peer to its low cost.
- Practice management
Multi-owner firms with $100M–$1B in assets had 48% higher EBITDA multiple, Wealth Solutions Report column says
The column's author, writing from FP Transitions, urges owners to ask whether growth reached margins and whether the firm could run without them.
- Recruiting & transitions
Kintra Wealth adds Scott Seymour's $355M practice to advisor-owned platform
Seymour, registered with Commonwealth for seven years, joins as partner and will use Kintra's shared operations, compliance and investment staff.
- Practice management
A $2.8B RIA's 18-month AI rollout delivered speed and a 'probably' on value
An Oct. 22 letter to Wealth Solutions Report's Dear Ryan column says the unnamed firm evaluated 11 vendors, selected three, and saw faster work but no reimagined client-service model.
- Practice management
WealthManagement.com column says Vanguard-Altruist deal raises advisor fee question
The column argues advisors must demonstrate how they interpret, contextualize and apply what clients already bring to the meeting.
- Tax & estate planning
Slott Report: HSA contributions fall to self-only limit when one spouse enrolls in Medicare
The same mailbag walks a 71-year-old through moving a Vanguard IRA to Fidelity and converting part of it, noting the RMD rule that applies later.
- Practice management
Devon Klumb tells advisors to expect AI questions before meetings
A 2026 Betterment Advisor Solutions survey of 1,001 U.S. advised investors found 75% use AI for financial tasks and 3% would consider replacing their advisor with an AI-powered alternative.
- Tax & estate planning
Allianz survey finds 34% of Americans expect Medicare to cover long-term care
The survey of 1,000 adults also found 23% believe Medicare is free; Fidelity projects $185,000 in retirement medical costs, excluding long-term care.
- Tax & estate planning
Taxable assets reach $66 trillion, nearly double retirement savings, H&W finds
The report counts 133.4 million U.S. households holding $102.4 trillion in investable assets, with the allocation decision most contested among households with $100,000 to under $3 million.
- Succession & selling a firm
Wolfe Research's Steve Chubak explains how investors separate recruiting and organic growth
In an Oct. 22 WealthManagement.com episode, he outlines the investor questions on growth sustainability, cost and capital deployment.
- Practice management
Fee-only RIAs' $5B-plus asset share falls to 34%, Cerulli finds
Cerulli reports fee-only firm growth at a 7.8% compound rate over five years, versus 12.4% for broker/dealer hybrids and 37.3% for RIAs with insurance-licensed advisors.
- Tax & estate planning
Wells Fargo study finds 61% of adult children report inheritance fallout
Parents report 29% fallout versus 61% of adult children, and only 21% have discussed estate plans in detail.
- The Advisor's Note
Beacon Pointe to buy $1B WorthPointe without founder Van Slyke
Terms were not disclosed, and the Austin and Tyler offices become new Beacon Pointe locations.
- Tax & estate planning
Musk's SpaceX share pledge can't enter an unclaimed Trump Account
Treasury opened the accounts Oct. 1, 2026, and until a parent claims one it can take only government and charity money plus the $1,000 pilot contribution.
- Tax & estate planning
NARSA survey: 73.5% of advisors say clients want early Social Security over cut fears
The August poll of 189 Registered Social Security Analysts also found nearly 59% say clients doubt Congress will fix the program's finances.
- Practice management
Visionary Square will cover FINNY AI subscription costs for 250-plus advisors
The hybrid RIA, which has $24 billion in assets under supervision, will cover seat costs for the AI prospecting tool at its 140 partner firms.
- Tax & estate planning
Healthspan Wealth opens early access to AI longevity planning tool
Founders Thomas C. West and Suzanne Schmitt started the company in 2025 and hold five patents on compliant information sharing.
- Products & portfolios
Blue Owl halts OBDC II redemptions, shifts to return-of-capital payouts
Robert A. Stanger's Michael Covello reads the move as an orderly liquidation and expects a first distribution of about 30% of NAV; later payouts are unquantified.
- Practice management
Focus hires AI startup Nevis to rebuild data flows across its 90 RIAs
CEO Adam Biernbaum described the contract as buying a process rather than a product; Focus passed over IBM, McKinsey, Accenture and Booz Allen, RIABiz reported.
9 stories
- Products & portfolios
Morningstar: A hypothetical basket of leveraged ETF reference stocks would have beaten the market
The equal-weighted portfolio would have trailed the leveraged ETFs themselves by about 5 percentage points a year, and Morningstar says it would not have fared as well lately.
- Succession & selling a firm
RIA acquisitions through Sept. 22, 2026, ran 19% below 2025 pace
Cerulli estimates 35% of advisors, responsible for 40% of industry assets, expect to retire within the next decade.
- Tax & estate planning
Tax-loss selling pushes record $5 billion into muni ETFs in week ended Oct. 14
Open-ended muni mutual funds lost $3.4 billion in the same week, their largest weekly outflow since June 2022.
- Practice management
Focus Financial adds Nevis as enterprise AI platform nine months after Jump rollout
Nevis will handle account opening first; Jump, rolled out to 800 advisors, has opened a beta for the same function at Schwab and Fidelity.
- Recruiting & transitions
Wealthcare, Mariner pitch 1099 affiliation to advisors fed up with Form ADV work
Matt Regan and Rob Sandrew said solo advisors are weighing platform support against keeping their own Form ADV registration.
- Products & portfolios
55ip extends UMA offering to RIAs with J.P. Morgan and BlackRock SMAs
Syntax connects its index engine to Schwab iRebal; Vise launches an asset-location tool.
- Practice management
FTC flags fake Evite invitations as a route into client accounts
The scheme asks recipients to enter their email login to see event details, and advisors warn a compromised inbox can reset the passwords to financial accounts.
- Practice management
PHP releases fixes for critical PHP2Shell flaws after details leak online
Patched versions are 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35; exploit attempts were recorded the same day.
- Tax & estate planning
Tax Foundation: bonus depreciation shifts corporate tax burden to economic profits
The Oct. 21 analysis says immediate expensing preserves a deduction's full value and removes the tax burden on the return needed to break even.