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In its latest effort to grow its defined contribution retirement business, Goldman Sachs Asset Management announced Wednesday that it will acquire Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management's stable value business, valued at $21.6 billion of total assets under supervision as of June 30.
The transaction, which is expected to close during the first quarter of 2014, follows last year's acquisition of Dwight Asset Management, a stable value asset manager based in Burlington, VT. Stable value funds are capital preservation investment options in U.S. retirement savings plans that invest in a high-quality, diversified fixed income portfolio protected against interest rate volatility by wrap contracts from banks and insurance companies.
John Axtell, DeAWM's head of stable value, and other members of the DeAWM stable value management team will join GSAM under the terms of the transaction. Prior to the closing, DeAWM "will work with clients to ensure a seamless transition to GSAM or other stable value managers," according to a GSAM release. GSAM reports that it managed more than $55 billion in defined contribution mandates, including more than $34 billion in stable value assets under supervision, as of June 30.
"GSAM's acquisition of DeAWM's stable value business affirms our strong commitment to providing defined contribution plan participants with capital preservation investment options," said Eric S. Lane and Timothy J. O'Neill, co-heads of the Investment Management Division at Goldman Sachs, in a statement. "The expert talent and potential client relationships that we gain from this transaction will complement our existing stable value business."
The transaction follows GSAM's July 2013 announcement of its intent to establish a new stable value collective trust.
Jerry Miller, head of DeAWM Americas, said the firm is shedding the DC portion of its business as it focuses on the fixed income, equity and alternative asset classes. "As we focus on growing the rest of our platform, we have opted not to participate in the consolidation of the stable value sector," Miller said in a statement. "Consequently, we are pleased with the sale of our stable value business to one of the leaders in the space."
Goldman Sachs Asset Management is a unit of The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), which oversaw $955 billion in assets under supervision as of June 30. With $1.2 trillion billion of assets under management as of June 30, Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management is a leading investment organization worldwide.
Read Don't Diss Bond Funds: Goldman Sachs at ThinkAdvisor.


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Is a Roth right for employees? More employers apparently think so.
A new survey from the human resources firm Aon Hewitt reveals a rise in the Roth 401(k)'s popularity, with an increasing number of employers planning on adding it to their defined contribution plans in 2013. Surprisingly, the fiscal cliff might be the reason.
As part of the congressional compromise, new legislation makes it easier for investors to convert balances within their savings plan into Roth accounts.
"While employers have steadily been adopting Roth features in recent years, the new law, along with a better understanding of Roth by both participants and companies, will encourage more plan sponsors to add these options in the near term," Patti Balthazor Bjork, director of retirement research at Aon Hewitt, said in a statement.
Immediately following the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 — the so-called fiscal cliff deal — the firm conducted a survey of more than 300 individuals representing large U.S. employers to determine the prevalence of Roth accounts and employers' likely actions with respect to their plans over the next 12 months.
According to the findings, while almost half (49%) of respondents currently offer no Roth provisions, 29% of those that don't offer Roth are very or somewhat likely to add this feature in the next 12 months. Of those new adopters, more than three-quarters (76%) will add both Roth contribution and in-plan conversion features.
The survey also found that employers that already have a Roth contribution option are likely to allow employees to make in-plan conversions to Roth accounts. Of those respondents that currently allow Roth contributions but do not offer in-plan conversions, more than half (53%) are very or somewhat likely to add this feature in the next 12 months.
For companies that already allow Roth contributions and in-plan conversions, more than three-quarters (79%) are very or somewhat likely to expand the eligibility for in-plan conversions, allowing them for previously nondistributable amounts.
"The new rules open the door for employers to allow expanded in-plan conversions, but it's not a requirement," Bjork added. "However, it makes the Roth conversions more attractive for employees, so there will likely be increased interest and incentive for employers to offer them."
See also:

subset: commoncrawl


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911 caller: Stranger slept on couch, 'urinated all over bathroom'
Robert Blair charged with trespassing
A Daytona Beach woman woke up Saturday to find a half-naked stranger asleep on her couch, so she called deputies.
Caller: I woke up this morning to some guy laying on my couch. I don't know how he got in my house, and he's still here.
Dispatcher: Is he in your house right now?
Caller: Yes
Dispatcher: Does he know you're calling?
Caller: Yeah, he's standing right here in front of me.
The caller said she woke up at 10 a.m. to find a man, later identified as 34-year-old Robert Blair, on her couch inside her Holly Street home. She screamed so loudly she woke up her husband. Her son and niece were also sleeping at the time.
The caller said Blair left the house as she was on the phone with authorities.
Dispatcher: Was he intoxicated?
Caller: I don't know what he was. But he urinated all over my bathroom floor. My bathroom stinks like heaven.
Blair claimed that someone let him into the home, but the residents said they were all sleeping and that they had never seen him before.
"He can't even tell me how he got in the house," the woman told the dispatcher.
Deputies tracked down Blair and charged him with trespassing. He appeared to be drunk, according to the sheriff's report.


text:
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PIMCO bond manager Bill Gross is reassuring investors roiled by last week's choppy markets that stocks and bonds are oversold and investors should stay the course.
In his new monthly investment outlook for July filled with nautical metaphors, the manager of the world's largest bond fund says the yields reached on bonds in late April plumbed historic depths and needed correction, but the reaction to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's tapering comments went overboard.
As co-captain of the Newport Beach, Calif.-based investment company, Gross watched as investors bailed out of his own Total Return Bond Fund last week, its value sinking more than most of its bond-fund mates.
Perhaps that brush with fate got Gross, a former Navy lieutenant, to reflect on a near disaster that occurred when his ship came within one degree of heeling in the South China Sea. Gross and his fellow crewman survived, prompting the former chief engineer to advise investors on how to abandon ship when necessary but also on how to avoid panic and right the ship when indicated.
The U.S. economy is not sinking, Gross says. What happened last week was that investors reacted to a ship that was "top-heavy with too little ballast" because the Fed had "tilted overrisked investors to one side of an overloaded and overlevered boat."
But Captain Gross says it would be a mistake for investors to jump overboard into "the cold money-market Atlantic Ocean at near zero degrees," alluding to the Fed's low policy rates.
That is because, far from the overreaction to Fed tapering of bond purchases, the central bank has consistently stated its 25 basis point federal funds rate will last beyond the end of QE, and "even then subject to a consistently strong economy that produces 2%+ inflation," which Gross considers unlikely this decade.
Under these conditions, and with the fed funds rate as his guiding star, the Pimco captain argues that he can navigate the bond market by observing futures market predictions of fed funds, which show a 75-basis-point yield in 2015.
That makes current yields at the fed funds 25 basis-point rate a bargain: "If frontend curves are up to 50 basis points cheap, then intermediate curves—the 10-year Treasury—may be as much as 35 basis points too cheap. They belong in our opinion at 2.20% instead of 2.55%."
In short, yield and risk spreads were far too low in April, but have overcorrected since. Captain Gross expects stock and bond returns in the 3% to 5% range in future years in an environment in which "those icy Atlantic money-market waters are likely to be with us for a long, long time."
What lies ahead is hardly a luxury cruise, but the Pimco manager concludes that markets have managed to tack the boat windward again.
For more on Gross' military service, check out Honoring Advisors Who Serve(d): Memorial Day, 2013 on AdvisorOne.


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What is HashRook.io?
We'll create the first IOT-powered XaaS platform for mining farms!
For thouthands of years people did it wrong way. We'll change this market forever with emission of our useless tokens.
Token is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure the transactions, to control the creation of additional units, and to verify the transfer of assets.
The last paragraph was copy-pasted form wikipedia and changed a little bit just to fill this block with some text.


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Look what I found.
They're jars.
From Italy!
No, I didn't bring them back from Italy, though that would have been the type of story I like to tell.
I could tell you about how I visited Rimini with my friend Lau for a beach holiday. How I ran to dip my feet in the Adriatic before we had even started to unpack. How as I walked back to the room, flip-flops in hand, I stopped by a little gelato place, drawn by the scruffy man behind the counter wielding a shallow scoop, caught by the indecision over gianduia versus espresso, satisfied by a double cone, and enchanted by the large jars holding nuts and tiny chocolate chips. How I inquired about those jars and was told that they had been made for the past 150 years by a company only three hours away in Fidenza that began its business making bottles for pharmaceuticals. How I rushed back to my room to find Lau resting on her bed, arm flug across her eyes to block out the ray of sunlight, and how I woke her up to taste that gelato and tell her my plan of renting a car to drive those three hours to the glass manufacturer to see a little history. How I said, "it's only a three hour drive" with such conviction that she forewent a day on the beach to accompany me.
But, that didn't happen.
I could tell you about how I visited Venice with my college boyfriend and how after a morning of navigating the canals and pigeons, we took a speed boat out to Murano to see their famous glass. How when ringing up a small decorative plate, the store owner stuffed her copy of the receipt into a glass jar. How I was so enamored by the jar that she emptied it, as she said she did every night, and arranged all the receipts in a neat pile, and handed the jar to me.
But, that didn't happen.
I could tell you how I was just south of Naples on the island of Capri in the cold of November with a friend who was a serious shopper. How she introduced me to Prada and Gucci. How our little hotel in the cliffs welcomed us to our room with a glass jar filled with biscotti in lieu of a TV. How we took that jar of biscotti with us as we hiked out to the blue grotto ("La Grotta Azzurra") and snacked on them along the way, holding on to the empty jar as we scooched down in our tiny rowboat to enter the water-filled cave. And how I carefully wrapped that jar in t-shirts to secure its safe flight home.
But that didn't happen.
Here's what did happen.
I found the jars in a store not too far from my apartment and I picked up one from the shelf. I went back to the shelf. I brought home five.
The other stories are better, no?
Regardless of how I got them, now I get to fill them. Let's start with the biscotti that my Capri hotel make-believe baked for us.
Let's bake them with cocoa and stud them with almonds.
Now let's tinge them with orange – a little zest, a little blossom water, the smell of citrus.
Perfect for a hike (with espresso in a thermos).
Next, let's fill another jar with some chocolate and nuts reminiscent of the toppings in the gelato shop with the cute scoop-wielding Italian man who served me two flavors. Let's make a nutty crunchy sweet concoction that's less trail-worthy and more I-need-an-afternoon-snack-worthy. Let's bring in a jar to the office and leave it on the corner of a desk for everyone to snack from.
Finally, let's fill a jar with receipts.
OK, that doesn't make sense. But let's say that I open my own restaurant (the one with the long communal table). And let's say I keep each day's receipts in a glass jar at the front of the house and keep a stock of glass jars in the back. And let's say that if someone comments on the receipt jar, I'll pull one out from that back room and send him away with a smile.
Let's just say.
Chocolate almond orange biscotti
I based this recipe off of David Lebovitz's chocolate biscotti – he makes one hell of a biscotti. I think these are my favorite biscotti I've ever made, and I've made a lot. I did make a few changes to give them an orange flavor – I replaced the almond extract with orange blossom water, omitted the chocolate chips, increased the amount of salt, and added orange zest. It's actually easier to make these by hand than using a stand mixer.
– 1 C raw almonds
– 4 eggs (room temperature) – divided 3 for the dough, 1 for brushing on top
– 1 C sugar
– 1 t vanilla extract
– 1 t orange blossom water
– zest of 1 orange
– 2 C flour
– 3/4 C cocoa powder
– 1 t baking soda
– 1/2 t kosher salt
– turbinado sugar (sugar in the raw)
Toast. While pre-heating the oven to 350°F, toast the almonds on a cookie sheet. This should take about 10 minutes. Stay close to the oven – when the scent of almond fills the kitchen, take them out. Let them cool and then roughly chop them.
Beat. In a bowl, beat together the first 3 eggs, sugar, vanilla, orange blossom water, and orange zest.
Stir. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt and gradually stir into the wet ingredients until the dough comes together. Mix in the chopped toasted almonds. The dough will be thick and sticky.
Shape. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Flour your hands a tiny bit and shape the dough into two logs. Lightly brush them with beaten egg white (freeze the yolk for the next time you want to make pâte sucrée) and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
Bake. Bake for 25 minutes until the dough feels firm to the touch.
Cool. Remove the logs and cool on a rack for about 15 minutes.
Slice. Use a sharp serrated knife to cut the cooled logs diagonally into 1/2-inch slices.
Bake again. Lay the cookies, cut side down, back on the cookie sheet and bake for 20-30 minutes, flipping them over after 10 minutes to toast both sides.
Eat (or store). In case you don't finish these all in one sitting, store them in an airtight container for up to two weeks. As if!
I-need-an-afternoon-snack mix
It's a bit embarrassing to call this a recipe. But I do believe that I have, though extensive testing and customer surveys, developed the best afternoon pick-me-up. Here's how you do it:
Start with a few handfuls of lightly salted roasted almonds. Bonus points if you then toast them again in your oven until your kitchen smells like almonds. Put them in a big bag. Add in a few handfuls of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Add in one big handful of dried blueberries. Add in one big handful of dried tart cherries. Shake it all around. Pour into an Italian jar. Leave on the corner of your desk.


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The March issue of Research magazine looks at some key issues facing a fast-changing advisory industry.
"Stocks: A Hard Sell," the cover story by Ellen Uzelac, details how client enthusiasm for equities has taken a hit in recent years, and how advisors are responding to this trend. Recent indications of renewed client interest are discussed as well.
"A Steeper Tax Landscape," by Jane Wollman Rusoff, assesses the impact of new tax laws on high-income clients, and what strategies are suited for this environment.
The Annuity Analytics column, by York University's Prof. Moshe Milevsky, offers eye-opening advice on how to make the most of guaranteed living benefits in annuity contracts. Meanwhile, in the latest Finke on Finance feature, Prof. Michael Finke of Texas Tech University discusses what new research is revealing about differences between men and women regarding risk tolerance.
This month's Political Monitor column, by Senior Editor Kenneth Silber, focuses on how skewed perceptions, described by metaphors involving bubbles, pose dangers in markets and politics alike. Silber assembles polling data on how financial advisors and institutions are perceived by the public as a way to help advisors look beyond a possible "Wall Street bubble."
Click through the following slides to preview the March issue of Research.
In the March cover story, Contributing Editor Ellen Uzelac discusses how advisors are responding to changed client attitudes on stock ownership. Excerpt:
Back in January, advisor Jeffrey Smith received an email from a relatively new client who was worried about how the debt ceiling negotiations and potential government shutdown might affect her portfolio. Smith's response was swift—and pre-emptive. He scheduled a face-to-face meeting for the next day and dispatched to all clients a letter he hoped would build a "sound and proper perspective" as events unfolded in Washington.
In closing, Smith, who heads North Shore Investment Consulting in Wilmette, Ill., cautioned: "Again, the media is going to have a field day with this. Try not to let it jar you. Should volatility emerge, throw a hard shoulder toward it. Portfolios need not, and should not, be de-risked as this event approaches."
Turn on Your Living Benefit, Now
Prof. Moshe Milevsky offers some advice on the complex task of optimizing variable annuity options. Excerpt:
I am frequently asked by financial advisors whether clients should "hurry up"—in light of the declining richness of guaranteed living benefit (GLB) riders—and add money to variable annuities (VAs) they already own, before it is too late and they are closed to new contributions.
To be honest, I too, have been wondering about the same with my own VA policy, rich in riders, which I fortunately purchased a few years ago. Although my particular policy and its unique inflation-adjusted income riders aren't available for sale anymore, I do have the option to add funds.
Contributing Editor Jane Wollman Rusoff surveys the changed tax scene. Excerpt:
Beatle George Harrison was so burned up over the U.K.'s whopping 95% income tax rate the top-bracket Fab Four were paying that, in a fit of pique, he penned a song about it, "Taxman": "If you drive a car, I'll tax the street/ If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat/ If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat/ If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet."
Super-affluent clients won't be similarly distressed by increases the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA) has brought—provided financial advisors use smart strategies to shelter and protect their income and assets.
Prof. Michael Finke, contributing editor, analyzes recent research on risk tolerance. Excerpt:
Women are obviously less willing to take investment risks than men, right? A seminal study by professors Brad Barber and Terrance Odean famously found that men trade more aggressively than women within brokerage accounts. Other early studies found that women prefer safer portfolios in their defined contribution plans. The perception of the fairer sex as less willing to suffer the cruel volatility of a stock-laden portfolio fits well with common beliefs about the differences between men and women.
But there may be more to this story. Women and men are different, but not just biologically different. Women in older cohorts were less likely to go to college, many interrupted their working lives to raise children, and others chose not to assume responsibility for managing household investments.
Senior Editor Kenneth Silber considers the perils of being insulated from disagreeable data. Excerpt:
Many in the financial sector, including financial advisors, were blindsided by the rise of Occupy Wall Street. One reason for this may be that, if you work in finance and spend much time in financial circles (or with clients who tend to be satisfied with your performance), it is easy to misread broader public opinion about finance—and in particular, to underestimate popular dislike and distrust of the sector.
As an antidote to such a possible bubble, let me cite a few poll numbers. A June 2012 Gallup poll found that Americans' confidence in banks had fallen to a record low, with only 21% saying they had "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in banks, while 35% said they had "very little" or "none."
See the contents of the March issue.


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Design Workflow
|1. A fully documented Process, set of Procedures and/or set of Steps that include detailed inputs, outputs, data flows, decision branches, functional processing units, and rules or algorithms that can often be automated, at least to some extent if not completely, and that exists or exist for or because of a specific Design Item.
Read More
|1) The Semantic Root Noun for this term is: Design
2) Semantically Related Terms: The "Design Management Glossary"
3) The Design Management Home Page covers much more about other related terms and concepts associated with this term or phrase.


text:
To get the most of your SINGER22.com shopping experience, we recommend upgrading your browser.
She first joined the cast of The Hills when she confronted Lauren Conrad and later apologizing for the confrontation. She has been quoted as being "the girl you either love or hate.†The show started to focus on her personal life and past struggles. She worked alongside Lauren at Kelly Cutrone's People's Revolution. She continued to star in the show maintaining rivalries with different cast members for various reasons, including her brother. The fight between her, Spencer and Heidi became public and was all over the tabloids. Now that The Hills is over, Stephanie is still friends with Lauren Conrad and Lo Bosworth.
In 2010 she posed nude for an ad campaign for PETA's iPhone application, "Be Nice to Bunnies.†The app's purpose is to help users find animal friendly products and retailers.
She has overcome a past eating disorder that stemmed from working alongside thin co-stars and drug abuse, which she has been public about.
Stephanie was born April 11, 1986 in Los Angeles California. She attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.


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WASHINGTON – U.S. President Barack Obama won a commanding victory and a second term in the White House late Tuesday evening as a landslide of major swing states fell to the man who vows to lead Americans into a more liberal future.
Emerging from the fog of more than $6 billion in election expenditures that produced a shrill of endless campaign advertising, U.S. voters went to polls in such large numbers that voting continued in some eastern states well past 11 p.m.
As the results flowed in, voters quickly showed they were ready to give Obama a second chance to right the struggling economy and cement his social programs, including public health care.
After taking a concession call from Republican rival Mitt Romney, Obama took to a stage in Chicago and addressed thousands of supporters who had gathered there to celebrate. He urged Republicans and Democrats to work together to improve the economy and fix the deficit.
In a country of 300 million people, democracy can be "noisy and messy and complicated," Obama said, but "these arguments that we have are a mark of our liberty."
"We can never forget that as we speak people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter, a chance to cast their ballots like we did today."
For the first time since the Democratic convention in August, he also made reference to climate change, saying Americans have to make sure their children "can grow up in a country that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet."
When Obama took Ohio and Pennsylvania, it showed the industrial heartland of America had rallied to his side. Obama also took Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado and Wisconsin, the home state of Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan.
Romney had nursed a brief lead in battleground Virginia, but as the evening progressed Obama overtook him. By then it was academic.
After Ohio was declared Democrat, Romney headquarters in Boston appeared stunned, initially refusing to concede the state. But the state had been declared for Obama even before the results had come in from Democrat-rich urban areas. One hour after Ohio had been declared for Obama, Romney phoned Obama to concede the race.
Shortly after, Romney appeared in front of his supporters, telling them, "this is the time of great challenges for America and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation."
He called on Republicans and Democrats alike to "put the people before the politics" and "reach across the aisle to do the nation's work."
The nationwide popular vote remained extremely close with Obama taking about 50 per cent to 49 per cent for Romney after a campaign in which the candidates and their party allies spent a combined $2 billion. But in the state-by-state system of electoral votes that decides the White House, Obama notched up a comfortable victory.
Obama took all of the New England states plus New Jersey and New York and held comfortable leads in his home state of Illinois and in Michigan. In the West, he won the electoral college prize of California with its 55 votes.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper congratulated the president on his re-election.
"I look forward to working with the Obama Administration over the next four years to continue finding ways to increase trade and investment flows between our countries," Harper said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Democrats solidified their hold on the Senate, gaining four seats and losing two others in the upper chamber. In Missouri, Democrat Claire McCaskill defeated Republican Todd Akin, who lost ground early in the campaign when he claimed that women who are victims of "legitimate rape" cannot have babies.
In his concession speech, he said "the source of America's great freedom is a loving God."
Democrat Joe Donnelly took an Indiana Senate seat from Republican Richard Mourdock, whose fortunes collapsed last week when he announced his opposition to abortion on demand even in rape cases.
Democrat Elizabeth Warren defeated Republican incumbent Scott Brown in the Senate race in Massachusetts. Brown was the Tea Party favourite who in 2010 won Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat.
As predicted, the Republicans retained control of the House of Representatives, meaning Obama will continue to have to deal with a divided congress that in the last two years has blunted his ability to complete his social and environmental legislative programs and refused to set a budget.
Allegations of voter manipulation and suppression flowed from both sides soon after voting opened Tuesday. In Ohio, a judge threw out a Democrat lawsuit charging that new software used in electronic voting machines could secretly alter ballots.
Romney continued to campaign up to the last minute with unscheduled stops in Pennsylvania and Ohio. It is unusual for a candidate to hold campaign rallies on election day for fear of disrupting workers' efforts to get people to the polls. Democrats characterized Romney's last-ditch efforts to lure voters were acts of desperation.
The election results suggest the Republican Party has failed to keep up with the changing demographics of America. The growth of the Hispanic community in Florida, Colorado and New Mexico has favoured the Democrats as much as 73 per cent. The rise of the black and Latino communities as solid Democratic voting blocs together with the majority of women who lean Democrat does not bode well for the future of the Republicans, who continue to move deeper toward the far right with each election. Commentators claim that if the Republicans continue to lose the immigrant vote, Texas – with its growing Latino population – will turn into a swing state.
Romney's promise to lower taxes for the rich even when they are at almost record lows did not find support among these voters in the industrial heartland. They see a widening gap between rich and everybody else. His opposition to environment regulations and his promise to "get rid of" public health care, parental care and privatize social security as a way to reduce the deficit found support primarily among older white men.
Democrats on the other hand had an uphill battle fighting the socialist label and the charge that they are leading America to within an inch of the apocalypse with their promise to increase taxes on the rich, cement the new Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), strengthen economic stimulus programs and the government's involvement in education and retraining of American workers.
The abortion issue also played a prominent role in this election. Romney's policy of ending freedom of choice in all abortion cases including rape further defined the huge ideological gap dividing the two sides and the growing opposition of women to his party.
The election marks the last campaign of Obama's political career and Monday night he held his last rally in Iowa, the state where he first announced his candidacy for president in 2006 and promised Americans a kinder, more liberal country – a new America. His main battle in recent months has been not so much with Romney but with the more than eight per cent unemployment rate and that fact that many of his supporters believed he failed to deliver on his promise to make American a more egalitarian state.
Studies show that as America has slowly emerged from the 2008 economic collapse, most of the wealth has again trickled up to the one-percent, abandoning middle class Americans in their struggle to stay afloat.
Obama himself has probably been kept afloat by Romney and his far-right policies. With this loss, Romney is also staring at the end of his political career. A multimillionaire, he spent the past five years, 10 months and three days campaigning for the second time for the U.S. presidency.
His struggle was with his credibility both within his own split-personality party and with Americans as a whole. Despite his deep commitment to the Mormon religion, he is often characterized as a man without any core beliefs, someone whose pitches micro-target the group he is addressing like the hedge fund salesman he used to be.
This election gave new importance to the presidential debates, each of which was watched by more than 60 million Americans. It was their only chance to see the two candidates face off on the major issues and became the most crucial trend points of the campaign.
Obama gradually corrected his ship. There was a new seriousness to his words. Four years was not enough to undo the hand that he was dealt, he said. He had stopped the war in Iraq, set the stage to pull out of Afghanistan, killed America's arch enemy Osama bin Laden, and enacted a public health care system and equal pay for women. Give me four more years to finish the job, he begged.
With the help of running mate Joe Biden and surrogate Bill Clinton, he got it.


text:
Download WinRAR for Mac
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text:
She was trying to find some adjectives to describe it, or even figure out a way to write a decent thank you note for this clay edifice.
The staff, however, were concerned that perhaps their opinions of this offering were, uh, not those of the majority.
So let's hear it, Grumpyites: What are your candid opinions of this?
Please note: it is lifesize (i.e. the size of a real fruit bowl and fruits).
(click to enlarge)


text:
Old Navy Womens Plus-Size Lace-Yoke Cable-Knit Sweater Blue Size 1X
Browse all deals at Old Navy
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* This offer may contain time-sensitive information and offers. Please check with Old Navy to confirm actual price & availability.
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The death of a child has a tremendous and overwhelming impact on parents and siblings, completely altering the psychological landscape of the family. In the aftermath of such a tragedy, parents face the challenge of not only dealing with their own grief, but also that of their surviving children.
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According to Neesha Hathi, Schwab's senior vice president of advisor technology solutions, "50% of advisors in the United States use a tablet device, and 86% of them use an iPad."
It's the latest statistic illustrating the increasingly connected advisor business. With the 2013 IA 25, our 11th annual list of the most influential individuals in and around the advisor business, we decided to do something different. We decided to provide examples of how, exactly, the industry is becoming more connected, using the individuals on this year's list as proxies. How is it that an industry is growing, while at the same time shrinking and more engaged?
Each of the individuals were named to this year's list for their creativity, success and—of course—impact, something they're doing largely through interaction and engagement with the others on the list, interaction driven by technology, advocacy and a host of other reasons. It's one more reason to take the time to get involved with issues and concerns beyond your own business. Use your webs of connectivity to learn from the wisdom of the advisor crowd.
Mohamed El-Erian
Mohamed El-Erian hardly needs any introduction. The CEO and co-CIO of investment giant PIMCO, who since the end of last year also serves as head of President Obama's Global Development Council, is one of the most talked about, influential figures in international finance.
He spoke with Savita Iyer-Ahrestani by email on what he feels are some of the more pertinent issues for financial advisors today, both with respect to the global environment as well as to the shifting dynamics within the United States and how they affect the advisory profession.
Q: Do you think financial advisors have the right combination of knowledge and tools to help clients achieve a satisfying retirement? What's lacking?
A: I believe the sources of return that allowed investors to meet retirement goals in the past won't necessarily be the same that enable investors to meet their objectives in the future. I also believe that correlations are evolving and the configuration of risks is changing.
As a result, the challenge for all investors, including financial advisors, is to keep an open mind in looking for additional sources of return that fit clients' needs, both return objectives and risk tolerances. This translates into broadening the opportunity set to take advantage of positive risk-return opportunities in all parts of the world, across asset classes and with a keen eye toward downside protection.
Q: Investment objectives aside, we have been reading a great deal about the importance of behavioral finance. Should financial advisors be making an effort to incorporate the principles of behavioral finance into their practices in order to cultivate the kind of deeper client/professional relationships that this post-crisis era calls for?
A: I do believe financial advisors should focus on cultivating deep client relationships to understand their clients' risk and return objectives and any biases that may drive behavior. This is particularly important during this time of global change, where fluidity seems to be the only recurrent theme.
In PIMCO's New Normal, I expect markets to exhibit higher volatility and a bumpier investment road than pre-crisis. For this reason, I believe it is important to invest for the long term within clear risk parameters, seeking to maximize an investor's potential without being held hostage to tactical traps and harmful unconscious biases. —Savita Iyer-Ahrestani
Read the extended version of Savita Iyer-Ahrestani's exclusive interview with Mohamed El-Erian here. Click here for a schedule of when each of the 2013 IA 25 honorees' extended profiles will be published.
All eyes will be on new Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White as she decides which rulemakings to tackle first.
While White told members of the Senate Banking Committee during her confirmation hearing in March that she would "absolutely" make a priority of reviewing the public feedback the agency has been getting since March 1 regarding costs and benefits of a fiduciary rulemaking, she said that finishing rulemaking mandates under the Dodd-Frank and JOBS Acts "in as timely and smart a way as possible" will be her top priority at the agency.
One of her "focus" areas while chairwoman, White said, will be regulating the conduct of broker-dealers and advisors when giving retail investment advice.
She told lawmakers that bolstering the agency's enforcement will be a priority, noting that while enforcement "must be fair, it also must be bold and unrelenting."
Investors and all market participants, the former prosecutor said, "need to know that the playing field of our markets is level and that all wrongdoers—invididual and institutional, of whatever position or size—will be aggressively and successfully pursued by the SEC."
White told lawmakers that among her list of priorities as she takes on her new job will also be to fully understand "all aspects of today's high-speed, high-tech and dispersed marketplace so that it can be wisely and optimally regulated, which means without undue cost and without undermining its vitality"; and focusing on money-market funds, private fund advisors, credit rating agencies and clearing agencies. —Melanie Waddell
Read Mary Jo White's extended profile here.
Last year, when we highlighted Elliot Weissbluth on the cover of our IA 25 issue, we said the HighTower Advisors CEO had changed the conversation on and about Wall Street. Where is that conversation now? "Like any other big topic, it hasn't changed much in the past year," said Weissbluth, before describing a rather big change: "More advisors have left the wirehouses," he said. At the same time, "the level of tolerance that individual investors have has decreased." What has increased is the "level of skepticism about these large firms—that they put their clients' interests first," while "the delineation between manufacturers and true fiduciaries is sharper." Weissbluth said he's "optimistic that the consumer is incrementally more sophisticated," and he sees opportunity ahead as "the next generation decides what advisor they'll use."
It's not so much that the next generation of clients doesn't trust advisors, he said; instead it's about "service model modality." He argued: "Do millennials want to be serviced the way their parents were?"
He compared the future prospects of wirehouse firms and independent firms like his. "Do the incumbent firms servicing the majority of investors have the prescience and the commitment to invest and change their businesses" to meet the needs of that next generation? "No," because the independent firms "are significantly ahead in innovative technology and solutions, and the big firms are playing catch-up and may never catch up." —James J. Green
Read Elliot Weissbluth's extended profile here.
For John Taft, head of wealth management at RBC Wealth Management, managing clients' wealth is part of a higher calling.
"Our focus is entirely on quality and excellence, not on scale," he said, adding that the firm has about 2,000 advisors. "We think that's large enough to be relevant and meaningful, but small enough to be intimate. We're happy with the scale. We're just committed to being better in every way: hiring the best advisors, putting the best products and services on our shelf, and continuing to build out our technology and operational platform."
Among the biggest challenges for advisors, of course, is the regulatory storm coming from policymakers. "Advisors and the wealth management industry generally, of which they are a critical part, are experiencing a tsunami of new regulation, some of which has already hit our shores, but a lot of which is on the way," Taft said.
Another big challenge, though, is the shape of the industry itself. "The business model is evolving from a sales model to a far more consultative and professional model, and is evolving from product specialists to holistic wealth management," according to Taft.
Fiduciary is a topic on most advisors' minds, but Taft suggested they should set their sights higher. "Stewardship," he said, "is all about responsibly managing what others have entrusted to your care." Stewardship is a "close cousin" to fiduciary, Taft said, but it goes a little further. "Fiduciary is a minimum legal standard. Stewardship is a higher standard even than fiduciary. It means thinking about others, i.e., your clients, in everything you do." —Danielle Andrus
Read John Taft's extended profile here.
Envestnet may have begun as a turnkey asset management provider, where it remains a leader punctuated by its announced acquisition in mid-April of Prudential's Wealth Management Services. Even that acquisition signals more of an evolutionary development than a turnabout for the company. When that acquisition was announced, Chairman and CEO Jud Bergman noted that "most of our new advisor and enterprise relationships are some kind of a conversion from a legacy" business model.
Even before making its acquisitions over the last few years of FundQuest, Prima Capital and Tamarac, "that kind of conversion became a core competency for us; it plays to our strength" as a company that, as we wrote in a June 2011 cover story here, Envestnet "stands at the crossroads" of the major issues facing advisors then and now.
Getting back to Envestnet's primary goal, Bergman said "the fundamental undertaking of Envestnet when we started was to unify and fortify the wealth management process through good technology, and then the necessary services advisors would look for—back office, billing administration—to free advisors up to do their highest value activity—meeting with clients and prospects, and solving investment issues."
What's next for Envestnet and the industry? Bergman sees a "rapid movement from desktop solutions to fully mobile solutions; we already have advisors using the Envestnet platform with clients through their iPads." Another example is benchmarking. "Larger firms are looking to deploy business intelligence—how certain advisors perform against certain benchmarks." —JG
Read Jud Bergman's extended profile here.
Mark Tibergien has been writing for Investment Advisor now for more than a decade. Not coincidentally, he is also the only person to appear on the IA 25 for all 11 years of its existence. But Tibergien's influence on the industry started before his affiliation with us, and in the history of the independent advisory business, Tibergien's influence will last far beyond 2013. That's because almost single-handedly he has preached that to become a profession, advisors must be business people. Tibergien has consistently raised thorny issues that some advisors would rather avoid and has used his bully pulpit to challenge advisors to be not only good business people but true leaders as well.
While he's achieved appropriate fame for focusing on the business side of an advisory firm, the needs of the end client are always front of mind.
His take on the fiduciary standard is similarly double-sided. While that standard might be the right and best approach for the client, it's also the prism through which an advisory firm's business practices should be measured.
Tibergien's legacy is evident not only in his own leadership and unparalleled intellectual capital contributions, but in the loyalty and admiration of many of the other leaders of the profession.
The Tibergien gospel? Be a good businessperson; be a good leader in your firm's culture and even (as he writes this month) in the language you use in your firm; keep a firm watch on your day-to-day practices and the eventual future of your firm; and make sure you are exercising your own talents and building an environment where your employees can grow and prosper. —JG
Read Mark Tibergien's extended profile here.
"2morrow I speak at Long-term Global Trends & Their Implications for the IMF," Nouriel Roubini recently tweeted, which is typical, since he's everywhere and seemingly always reacts to the latest financial crisis in real time.
Davos, IMF meetings, on the phone with the ECB; you name it, he's there. It's enough to make one forget his day job as an economics professor at NYU's Stern School. In addition to teaching, he's chairman of Roubini Global Economics, a research firm on global economic strategy whose website is a gathering place for leading voices on political and economic affairs. But don't take our word for it; Roubini.com has been named one of the best economics Web resources by BusinessWeek, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and The Economist.
Then there's his use of social media. His roughly 240,000 followers receive a daily dose of analysis that isn't afraid to employ salty language from time to time (austerity proponents and the Tea Party are frequent targets of his ire).
Roubini received an undergraduate degree from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, and a doctorate in economics from Harvard University. Prior to joining Stern, he was on the faculty of Yale University's department of economics.
We highly recommend his latest book, "Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance." It's a fun read with strong opinions that mirrors Roubini's personality. But if you don't have the time, don't worry; he's not hard to miss. —John Sullivan
Read Nouriel Roubini's extended profile here.
Jon Sundt doesn't have time for pleasantries. He's got too much going on. He's in liquid alternatives, after all.
"There is a tremendous demand for liquid alternatives, and in particular the products we've recently introduced," Sundt, president and CEO of Altegris Investments, said at the outset of our interview. "I believe it's a historic time for the industry. Return expectations are coming down for hedge fund managers and, in the wake of 2008, investors are afraid of lockups."
Hence the demand for something more liquid, which means managers who "would not have looked at a mutual fund product a few years ago are looking at them now. They're looking for more capital as well as looking to diversify. The retail investor base is where the capital is, and alternatives offer a number of ways to diversify."
All of this explains the firm's success; it's at the nexus of these critical—and lucrative—trends.
"We believe every investor deserves access to quality managers," Sundt emphatically stated. "We're open-architecture and put best-of-breed managers into packages that retail investors can consume. As a result, from a distribution standpoint, we're on all the major wirehouse platforms, and we're running as hard as we can to complete our product suite."
He pointed to two new products as proof; a multi-strategy fund that "gives an advisor access to 20 managers with the click of a mouse," as well as a fixed-income long/short fund that is in "an incredibly attractive space right now."
The excitement that seems to naturally flow from Sundt translates to the firm's annual Strategic Investment Conference as well. The 2013 lineup of speakers was described by one attendee as "intimidating." With Jeffrey Gundlach, Mohamed El-Erian, Nouriel Roubini, Ian Bremmer, Gary Shilling and David Rosenberg, among others, it's easy to see why.
"The Strategic Investment Conference is a byproduct of what we do, which is to bring together top managers and economic thought leaders to capitalize on their perspective," Sundt noted. "This is the 10th one we've done."
Very well, but how exactly does he attract such talent?
"Well, San Diego is nice," he laughed, before adding, "We have a good reputation in the industry. We have advisors in the audience that these managers want to get in front of."
The type of people Mohamed El-Erian wants to get in front of; we think Sundt's on to something. —JS
Read John Sundt's extended profile here.
Jeffrey Gundlach and 40 or so loyalists started up their own firm, DoubleLine Capital, in the face of a lawsuit charging him with misappropriating TCW trade secrets.
Gundlach suffered dark days and accusations flew, but he and his followers kept their plucky startup going until the clouds parted.
Today, Gundlach is described in the business media as "a Wall Street savant" (even though he's Los Angeles-based), "the king of bonds" and "a bond god."
"We have the most popular fund in America," he explained. "Being No. 1 is difficult on the competition, and they embark on negative campaigning. That goes with the territory. "
Gundlach, meanwhile, is more interested in talking about the recent launch of his firm's first stock fund, the DoubleLine Equities Small-Cap Growth Fund (DLESX), and the success of some pair trades he has recommended over the last year.
Back in May 2012, Gundlach said, he shorted Apple Corp. stock and went long natural gas. Sure enough, he said, that pair trade is now at 125%. Meanwhile, he noted, his "go long the Nikkei and short the Japanese yen" trade from December went up 65%. Now, he's looking at going long Spanish stocks on the IBEX and shorting U.S. stocks.
"I look for pair trades where the risk-reward is dramatically skewed with ridiculous pricings," Gundlach said. "Pair trades are interesting because you don't have to have a definitive view. You just have to understand that things will keep happening due to policy manipulations."
While it's impossible to train people to think the way he does, Gundlach said, his DoubleLine colleagues are a happy bunch.
"No one ever leaves. It's not like a revolving door. We like working together," he said. —Joyce Hanson
Read Jeffrey Gundlach's extended profile here.
For Chet Helck, CEO of Raymond James Global Private Client Group, and as of October 2012 the chair of SIFMA, the biggest challenge for advisors over the next year is simply dealing with the uncertainty in the markets and in consumers' minds.
"People are still somewhat in shock from the business cycle we've just been through," he said. "Even though the market's come back, we've been through a long period of time where people have not seen a lot of positive market momentum."
Further compounding the problem is that with the baby boomers, record numbers of investors are retiring. "It's hard to get clients to have confidence in doing anything and certainly in being able to accomplish objectives without taking undue risk."
To mitigate those challenges, the most successful advisors have become so by working "with clients early to try to accumulate enough principal where generating sufficient income is more doable," Helck said. "Where they have not had the ability to do that, where it's already retirement time and you now have to live with what you've accumulated, the strategies to create income have gotten to be far more sophisticated."
That increased sophistication requires assistance from a financial advisor, Helck said, but also makes the job of the financial advisor far more challenging. "Rather than just generating interest in dividend income, it requires more elaborate strategies where you accumulate and then start liquidation of certain parts of the portfolio." —DA
Read Chet Helck's extended profile here.
"I haven't seen a weekend since the wheels came off in 2008," said Larry Roth. "All of this gives me energy."
The "this" he refers to is his role as 2013 chairman of the FSI, chairman of the Insured Retirement Institute and his day job as president and CEO of Advisor Group, one of the largest IBD networks.
"FSI has been around for a number of years now," he said. "It's led by Dale Brown, who has brought in people to fill key positions who are CEOs of independent broker-dealers. Most of the big firms are now represented, as are mid-size firms and those that are privately held."
Specific to the Advisor Group, which is owned by AIG, Roth is most excited about the fact that the network is "back in growth mode."
"We have 6,000 advisors and a retention rate last year of 97%. We also acquired Woodbury Financial in 2012 [from The Hartford], and I am really excited to work with president and CEO Pat McEvoy and his team."
In addition to recruiting financial advisors from other broker-dealers, Advisor Group is exploring ways to bring new advisors to the industry. For example, it's partnering with a sister AIG company, AGLA, "to transform its career distribution force."
Advisor Group is helping AGLA career agents "adopt a broader, full-service financial planning model. It's a unique way to bring new advisors to our industry and one we're confident will be successful." —JS
Read Larry Roth's extended profile here.
It's no secret that investment advisors are opposed to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority becoming the self-regulatory organization that steps in to examine them—and, at least for the near term, it looks as though their wish has been granted.
As Richard Ketchum, FINRA's CEO, said in a recent email exchange with IA, "given the lack of consensus on the Hill" regarding an SRO for advisors, FINRA "is not pursuing legislation in either the House or Senate at this time."
While Ketchum said he would support allowing the Securities and Exchange Commission to assess user fees to boost advisor exams "if it becomes an achievable solution," he doesn't see a consensus among lawmakers to move forward with that option, either.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee, re-introduced her user fees bill in mid-April.
However, Ketchum told IA that FINRA "continues to believe that the current levels of investment advisor oversight and examinations are unacceptable and a risk to investors, and that this significant gap in investor protection needs to be addressed." It's undeniable, he said in his email, "that proper and timely oversight of investment advisors needs to be put in place sooner rather than later." —MW
Read Richard Ketchum's extended profile here.
Despite taking a drubbing from the industry over her insistence on issuing a rule to amend the definition of fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, Phyllis Borzi remains steadfast in her conviction to do so.
After pulling the original draft of the fiduciary rule last year, Borzi and her team at the Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration are planning to release a re-draft of that rule in July.
In an email exchange with Investment Advisor in mid-April, Borzi said that while EBSA's regulatory agenda states the rule proposal's release will come then, "we're going to take the time we need to get this right."
Indeed, industry officials say to expect a firestorm of opposition once that reproposal is released. While Borzi has said the reproposed rule will be backed by a "substantial economic analysis," some industry officials argue that extending the fiduciary rule to IRAs and rollovers—which Borzi has indicated will be part of the reproposal—will cause significant problems.
Borzi told IA that EBSA will, as with the original fiduciary proposal, seek public comment on the reproposal issued this summer. "We take into account comments on every proposal that we put out there," she said. "I think that is evidenced in our behavior since we first proposed an end to conflicts of interest in the retirement marketplace in 2010." —MW
Read Phyllis Borzi's extended profile here.
When reminded that this is the seventh year that he's been named to the IA 25, Dale Brown was quick to give kudos to his entire team, noting that Financial Services Institute's success doesn't hinge on his abilities alone. FSI's staff, Brown said, "sets priorities and makes sure those priorities are relevant to our members."
Since moving FSI's headquarters from Atlanta to Washington three years ago, FSI's membership has more than doubled—jumping from 15,000 advisor members to 35,000 today. The trade group's budget during that time has shot up as well, going from $3.5 million to more than $7 million. FSI's broker-dealer members now total 107.
Brown said one of FSI's top goals this year is bringing more advisor members on board and "getting them personally involved in our advocacy mission."
As to FSI's other priorities, Brown said the trade group has three: opposing the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule reproposal, which is due out in July; the "continued fight" regarding advisors' independent contractor status, with proposals at both the federal and state level that will make it more difficult for companies to classify workers as independent contractors; and leveraging FSI's existing resources to make the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority "a more effective regulator."
Said Brown: FSI is "working on the right issues; it's challenging, but we're getting results."
As to DOL's efforts to redefine the term fiduciary under ERISA, Brown has said DOL's proposal "would suddenly hold broker-dealers who work with company-sponsored retirement plans and IRAs to a different standard of oversight, one that would not be aligned with Main Street American investors' needs." —MW
Read Dale Brown's extended profile here.
Go to any conference where registered investment advisors meet, and it's clear from the buzz in the room that RIAs like to talk. Only rarely, though, does the subject come up of how much their company is worth.
To break the silence around real enterprise value, a group of six successful RIAs got together last year and committed to sharing their experiences to help the industry build independent firms that are truly sustainable. Called the Alliance for Registered Investment Advisors, or aRIA, this boutique industry association with more than $20 billion in client assets has established itself as a new think tank with a mission to provide intellectual capital and thought leadership to the wealth management community.
ARIA's group members are a mighty team. They include Matt Cooper, president of Beacon Pointe Wealth Advisors, and Neal Simon, CEO of Highline Wealth Management, both of whose firms were selected for AdvisorOne's 2012 Top Wealth Managers list. Also on the team are industry leaders Brent Brodeski, CEO of Savant Capital; John Burns, principal at Exencial Wealth Management; Ron Carson, CEO of Carson Wealth Management Group; and Jeff Concepcion, CEO of Stratos Wealth Partners.
This year, Brodeski, Carson and Simon were selected to Barron's Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors, noted John Furey, principal at Advisor Growth Strategies LLC (AGS), who serves as aRIA's managing member. Everyone in the group is solidly midpoint in seasoned careers, with no plans to sell and certainly no plans to retire any time soon.
"We're all in it to build long-term sustainable businesses," said Furey, a former director of strategic business development at Schwab Institutional. "As an industry, we don't talk enough about who's doing transactions and deals. Our group is doing deals, and then we're sharing our knowledge for free with the industry. We're walking our talk because transactions are happening, and we're proud of that."
One such deal involves Newport Beach, Calif.-based Beacon Pointe's recent addition of Independent Financial Advisors, a Riverside, Calif., RIA with $100 million of assets under management. Representing Beacon Pointe's fourth RIA rollup in just four months, the deal highlights a partnership model that places a premium on long-term growth and sustainability, Furey said. —JH
Read aRIA's extended profile here.
You could argue that the leader of Schwab Advisor Services is influential every year, owing to Schwab's position as the largest by far of the RIA custodians measured by number of advisors and assets under management. It's especially appropriate to single out Bernie Clark, who has led SAS since 2010, as one of the 25 most influential people in the industry by dint of his confident leadership in not merely growing Schwab's custody unit, but in identifying and acting upon many of the most trying issues faced by advisors. Those issues include succession planning, practice management, technology, identifying and growing the next generation of advisors and increasing RIAs' prominence in the consumer marketplace and in the corridors of power in Washington.
Take technology, for instance. "Two years ago, our advisory board" of RIAs said "mobile is not a priority,"Clark said in an April interview, before pointing out "how quickly people can transition" to the benefits of mobile technology, particularly in working with end clients. Using mobile technology will eventually allow advisors to reach the point where "two or three meetings become one meeting."
Beyond mobile, Schwab's nearly three-year-old Intelligent Integration project, part of an open-architecture "eco-system" approach that, Clark said, is a "10-year program," allows advisors to integrate their standalone applications into the Schwab platform, such as what it's already accomplished in CRM applications by working with SalesForce and Junxure. Last year, Schwab introduced MarketSquare, which allows Schwab RIAs to rate technology providers in a "Zagat-style way," and also added an e-signature option for end clients through DocuSign. —JG
Read Bernie Clark's extended profile here.
Since taking on an additional 139 advisors with $6.6 billion in assets under the Dodd-Frank "switch," Massachusetts has "been able to do what the Securities and Exchange Commission hasn't"—adequate examinations of those advisors, said William Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its securities regulator.
Since last June, when advisors with assets of between $25 million and $100 million under management were required to switch from federal to state jurisdiction, Massachusetts has already examined 40% of the new firms under its purview, Galvin told Investment Advisor.
For instance, while about 15% of the new advisors custody assets, Galvin said, Massachusetts examiners found that some advisors "were not reporting having custody of client assets over which they serve as a trustee or executor," which under Massachusetts law must be included in total assets under management. When advisors are trustees they have a "different level of authority," and "can move funds out of [a client's] account," setting up a "different relationship" with the client, he said.
Indeed, with a total of 929 advisors under its belt, Galvin said Massachusetts has "repositioned" exam personnel to be more efficient and to help create economies of scale when it comes to examining advisors.
Galvin said the state hasn't noticed any "inherently evil" practices from those advisors. "We don't want to be burdensome" on these advisory firms, he said, most of which are small businesses. In fact, he said, "it's the people who aren't registered" that present the biggest problems for the state. —MW
Read William Galvin's extended profile here.
The traditional 4% withdrawal rule is fine in a static world, but when was the last time the world was static?
For this reason, Michael Finke, professor of personal financial planning at Texas Tech, called the success of the traditional 4% rule a "historical anomaly" in a working paper published in mid-January.
"The 4% rule was based on the historical asset return in a market environment that doesn't look like the one that exists today," Finke told Investment Advisor in March.
"Our intention was to acknowledge the reality of lower returns moving forward," Finke recently explained, which in and of itself isn't controversial. But the methodology used and the conclusions he arrived at started a healthy debate over the best way to ensure clients' money lasts.
"Asset returns are a random walk. No one knows what bond returns will be in the future, but the market believes they will be negative," he said. "TIPS, for instance, are already negative. Nominal returns might go up, but real returns will be negative. It will either be a situation where they will be 0% for 20 years or slightly negative for 10 years."
So how did he arrive at such a bleak outlook? Not how one would think.
"We used the same methodology as others, but we did it to prove a point," Finke added. "The point was that we don't think the traditional withdrawal rates will address retirement income shortfalls; the supposedly safe methodology isn't as safe as it was in the past." —JS
Read Michael Finke's extended profile here.
Angie Herbers has been working with financial advisors for over a decade and has been writing for this magazine for almost as long. As the founder of Angie Herbers Inc., her firm has worked with practices of all stripes.
"They all deal with the same fundamental problem: growing a scalable business with profitable clients while attracting the next generation to take over the firm," Herbers told IA by email.
The company is more than just a consulting firm, though. "To the industry, Angie Herbers Inc. (AHi) is known as a consulting company," Herbers said. "What most people don't know is that we have a research division in our company that has sat quietly behind the scenes."
Until recently, that research was done solely for AHi clients, but Herbers said that over the next two years, custodians and broker-dealers will have access to "all our research, solutions and systems."
She added, "In the next two years, the industry will see AHi transition into a practice management educational institution with 100% access to our 12 years of research in the advisory industry." —DA
Read Angie Herbers' extended profile here.
It seems inevitable that Valerie Brown should end up where she is. The daughter of a financial planner, the CEO and president of Cetera Financial Group said she grew up with a love for and comfort with numbers and math. Her background in chemical engineering, which she called a "perfect fit" for the financial services industry, didn't hurt either.
"Chemical engineering teaches their students to take what are often pretty ambiguous problems and structure them and try to identify practical solutions," Brown said of her undergraduate studies. "That's a good overview of what many of us in this industry deal with: challenging problems and helping clients figure out their retirement plan in an environment where interest rates are pretty close to zero."
In fact, that particular challenge is one of the biggest affecting advisors today. "Given that a lot of clients and retirement assets are sitting with the baby boomers, who are either entering, in or close to retirement, this low-interest-rate environment is challenging everybody," Brown said. Also hitting boomers and their retirement strategies is "a pullback in the insurance industry from giving people guaranteed income that a lot of the annuity products provided."
There is good news, Brown said. "The market's done very well. This is the fourth year running that we're having a continuation of good market returns." She noted, though, that "while clients' fee-based businesses continue to do well, the commission side of the business has not been growing as rapidly as it was pre-crisis. That tells you middle-market America, where commission-based products often fit better, is still standing on the sidelines."
Those "stresses," as Brown called them, affect not just advisors, but product manufacturers as well. "Continuing to innovate around those issues is a challenge for all of us as we go forward," Brown said.
Brown said Cetera's main focus is "continuing to help our advisors grow their practices, their relationships with their clients and serve them better every day. That's what they're focused on, and we're focused on supporting them in doing that."
Cetera recently announced it will add about 800 advisors when it acquires Tower Square and Walnut Street from MetLife, bringing its advisor count to nearly 7,000. "It's another significant step forward and [confirms] our strategy that having multiple faces of independence has a real solid place in this industry where you can have the best of both worlds," Brown said. —DA
Read Valerie Brown's extended profile here.
As he ticks off trends he sees in the advisor industry, Michael Kitces, publisher of the e-newsletter The Kitces Report and the blog Nerd's Eye View, envisions that technology-augmented advisors will trump traditional advisors over the next 10 years. Indeed, Kitces foresees that society is headed toward a central computer experience where all the world will be a supercomputer—and, no surprise, he proudly lays claim to being a big nerd.
"I'm a Star Trek fan, a Star Wars fan, a Firefly fan. I'm a nerd," said the 35-year-old, two-time IA 25 winner. (Kitces, whose thoughts appear frequently in the pages of Investment Advisor as well as on sister website AdvisorOne, also was an IA 25 honoree last year).
Kitces' nerd-dom is the advisor industry's gain. His thoroughness when studying financial planning has not only led to his earning a string of designations—MSFS, MTAX, CFP, CLU, ChFC, RHU, REBC, CASL—but has allowed him to bring his knowledge to the conference circuit as a sought-after speaker. In the last year, Kitces has completed 55 speaking engagements. —JH
Read Michael Kitces' extended profile here.
Greg Friedman began the interview by noting he didn't have much prepared and would probably end up speaking in a stream of consciousness. If so, it's the most succinct stream of consciousness we've yet encountered.
"I think a lot about the incredible sea change that's coming in the way clients work with advisors and how it will change the competitive landscape," he said, before self-consciously adding, "I know that's not really new, but I have a new way of looking at it."
Friedman, who describes himself as the hardest working man in wealth management, is president of both advisor CRM-provider Junxure and Private Ocean, an innovative West Coast wealth management firm. He also describes himself as someone who never really believed that human interaction on a personal level would be superseded by technology, and always said as much. He's now beginning to change his mind.
"Think about psychiatrists, for example," he noted. "They're employing video conferencing and mobile chat. Situations that are considered very personal, and financial advice would certainly fall into that category, are increasingly making use of communication technology." —JS
Read Greg Friedman's extended profile here.
Eleanor Blayney took on the role of the CFP Board's Consumer Advocate right at the beginning of 2009, after several months of discussions with CFP Board CEO Kevin Keller developing the position before the "true meltdown" took place.
"It was almost coincidence that the position we thought about in the middle of 2008 was more needed than ever," the veteran advisor said. "We both acknowledged that Americans needed to understand more about the financial planning process and needed to understand more about the CFP designation and exactly what went into it."
She continued: "Five years ago we suffered a very large blow to the system. The financial structure of our country was pretty wobbly. It was very difficult to see clients that many of us have worked with for years, to see the ground shake beneath them. Unfortunately with the Madoff scandal and the Stanford scandal, consumers' trust was shaken, but they didn't understand exactly how our industry works and who was out there to help them.
"It was a time when we really earned our mettle," Blayney said of the period immediately after the crash. —DA
Read Eleanor Blayney's extended profile here.
Bill Winterberg, a certified financial planner with a bullish view on the future of technology in the advisor space, describes himself as squarely positioned in the Gen X/Gen Y demographic.
A tech columnist for Morningstar Advisor and tech contributor to the Financial Planning Association's (FPA) Journal of Financial Planning, Winterberg also consults with advisors on choosing the right solutions for their practices. His experience comes from his background as an embedded software engineer for Hewlett-Packard Co. and app-heavy LeapFrog Toys.
As for current trends he's seeing, Winterberg pointed to the Securities and Exchange Commission's recent decision to allow publicly traded firms to post announcements on social media such as Twitter, LinkedIn and public Facebook pages. He also sees big data making a greater impact on financial advice in the future, with advisors using marketing data about consumers to build portfolios based on demographics such as age and annual income.
Meanwhile, Winterberg said, advisors will do more to use social intelligence to influence their communication with clients. He named his tech-savvy friend and fellow financial-planning consultant (and fellow IA 25 honoree) Michael Kitces as a case in point.
"Michael and I are in a study group together and—I can brag a little bit here—I told him, 'Michael, you've got to get on Twitter.' I had 1,000 followers at the time, and he had zero. Now, he has more than 7,000 followers, and I'm just below 5,000." —JH
Read Bill Winterberg's extended profile here.
"We live," Olivia Mellan told us, "in an adolescent society" marked by a short-term orientation, where people "don't plan ahead and look at the whole picture." That is where advisors can help, acting, as Mellan likes to say, as "therapeutic educators" who "walk the talk." Since they "have a peaceful lack of anxiety in talking about money," they are then able to lead their clients to apply the tools needed to achieve their goals.
So if that's what advisors can do, what does Olivia Mellan do? She has been a couples therapist for decades, is creator of the "Money Harmony" concept, is a highly entertaining (and educational) speaker, runs multigenerational family workshops and is the author of five books with her long-time writing partner Sherry Christie. As a therapeutic educator herself to advisors, Mellan's influence in the industry is subtle but real. Particularly over the past few years, Mellan has expanded her Psychology of Advice column in this magazine to explore areas as diverse as the rising incidence of divorce among older people, the latest advances in brain behavior and how to help client couples with divergent expectations and needs prepare for retirement.
What about the naysayers who denigrate advisors who follow Mellan's approach as being practitioners of only the "soft side" of financial planning? "They're not therapeutic educators; they're not providing holistic financial planning if they put down emotion. Brain studies show emotion is always involved in financial decision-making; people never make decisions based on their rational brain." —JG
Read Olivia Mellan's extended profile here.


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Sector investing has been given a bad rap.
To proponents of traditional asset allocation and broad diversification, investing in single industry sectors via ETFs is tantamount to speculation. Why bet on energy or financial stocks when a broad market index fund already holds these sectors?
Granted, day trading in and out of sector ETFs is indeed speculative behavior. But it's misinformed to assume tactical trading with sector ETFs is the primary or only way to invest in industry sectors.
Let's examine three ways sector ETFs can help reduce market risk and increase cash flow.
Spreading Risk
Apple (AAPL) is a recent example of what we've witnessed time and again: today's hotshots becoming tomorrow's turkeys.
The iPad maker's stock price has dropped around 40% in value over the past eight months. (Wall Street's analysts still have a laughable average price target of $633 even though Apple is nowhere near those levels.)
If an investor really believes in the technology sector, why bet the house on just one horse when you can own many?
That's where ETFs come in.
The Select Sector Technology SPDR (XLK) owns Apple along with Google, IBM and 75 other large-cap technology companies within the S&P 500.
The stock-replacement strategy, with ETFs being used in the place of individual stocks, allows an investor to have broader diversification, less volatility and less single-company risk.
Study after study continues to prove the vast majority of stock portfolios (managed by both amateurs and professionals) consistently underperform corresponding index funds or index ETFs.
This even applies at the sector level. The stock-replacement strategy isn't just smarter, it also helps investors avoid the higher investment costs associated with those losing strategies.
Increasing Dividend Growth
Bonds or fixed income are a typical source for income-minded investors, but a lack of income growth is a major drawback.
"Unlike the bond market where you receive a set income stream, the beauty of the stock market and dividend flow is the cash paid today with the potential for growth," said Dan Dolan, director of wealth management strategies at Select Sector SPDRs.
"Many companies are focused on increasing their dividend over time, which results in higher cash flow for investors, making the equity investments more attractive," Dolan explained.
Higher-yielding sectors like utilities (XLU) have the potential to offer better yields compared to today's bond rates, but also the potential for increasing dividends.
XLU carries a 12-month yield of 3.72% compared to just 2.72% for TLT, which tracks long-term U.S. Treasuries.
Minimizing Market Distortions
It's uncomfortable to say, but sometimes traditional market-cap-weighted index funds get distorted.
In 2000, technology shares made up an incredible 35% of the S&P 500's sector representation. Not only did this minimize the importance of other sectors (the opposite of diversification), it created more sector concentration risk.
Who would've ever thought a broadly diversified equity benchmark like the S&P 500 would turn into a top-heavy, tech-dominated index?
By design, equal-weighted indexes or benchmarks aim to reduce these kinds of market distortions. Instead of weighting stock components by their market size, companies are assigned an equal percentage within the index.
The ALPS Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (SDOG) is an ETF that takes a novel approach by applying the "Dogs of the Dow Theory" on a sector-by-sector basis using the S&P 500 as its starting universe of eligible securities.
The fund chooses the top five highest-yielding stocks in 10 different S&P 500 industry sectors and then equally weights each company. This strategy provides diversification at both the stock and sector level.
Although SDOG is less than a year old, the 10-year track record for equal-weighted ETFs like the Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) have been impressive compared to traditional market-cap-weighted benchmarks.
SDOG's current 30-day SEC yield is 3.96%, and dividends are paid quarterly.


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Rectangle PQRS has X and Y on the edges. Triangles PQY, YRX and XSP have equal areas. Prove X and Y divide the sides of PQRS in the golden ratio.
The diagram shows a regular pentagon with sides of unit length. Find all the angles in the diagram. Prove that the quadrilateral shown in red is a rhombus.
Explore the geometry of these dart and kite shapes!
ABCDE is a regular pentagon of side length one unit. BC produced meets ED produced at F. Show that triangle CDF is congruent to triangle EDB. Find the length of BE.
An iterative method for finding the value of the Golden Ratio with explanations of how this involves the ratios of Fibonacci numbers and continued fractions.
Draw whirling squares and see how Fibonacci sequences and golden rectangles are connected.
Leonardo who?! Well, Leonardo is better known as Fibonacci and this article will tell you some of fascinating things about his famous sequence.


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OpenCL provides many benefits in the field of high-performance computing, and one of the most important is portability. OpenCL-coded routines, called kernels, can execute on GPUs and CPUs from such popular manufacturers as Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and IBM. New OpenCL-capable devices appear regularly, and efforts are underway to port OpenCL to embedded devices, digital signal processors, and field-programmable gate arrays.
Not only can OpenCL kernels run on different types of devices, but a single application can dispatch kernels to multiple devices at once. For example, if your computer contains an AMD Fusion processor and an AMD graphics card, you can synchronize kernels running on both devices and share data between them. OpenCL kernels can even be used to accelerate OpenGL or Direct3D processing.
Despite these advantages, OpenCL has one significant drawback: it's not easy to learn. OpenCL isn't derived from MPI or PVM or any other distributed computing framework. Its overall operation resembles that of NVIDIA's CUDA, but OpenCL's data structures and functions are unique. Even the most introductory application is difficult for a newcomer to grasp. You really can't just dip your foot in the pool you either know OpenCL or you don't.
My goal in writing this article is to explain the concepts behind OpenCL as simply as I can and show how these concepts are implemented in code. I'll explain how host applications work and then show how kernels execute on a device. Finally, I'll walk through an example application with a kernel that adds 64 floating-point values together.
Host Application Development
In developing an OpenCL project, the first step is to code the host application. This runs on a user's computer (the host) and dispatches kernels to connected devices. The host application can be coded in C or C++, and every host application requires five data structures:
cl_device_id, cl_kernel, cl_program, cl_command_queue, and
When I started learning OpenCL, I found it hard to remember these structures and how they work together, so I devised an analogy: An OpenCL host application is like a game of cards.
A Game of Cards
In a card game, a dealer sits at a table with one or more players and distributes cards from a deck. Each player receives these cards as part of a hand and then analyzes how best to play. The players can't interact with one another or see another player's cards, but they can make requests to the dealer for additional cards or a change in stakes. The dealer handles these requests and takes control once the game is over. Figure 1 illustrates this analogoy.
In addition to the dealer and the players, Figure 1 also depicts the table that supports the game. The players seated at the table don't have to take part, but only those seated at the table can participate in the game.
The Five Data Structures
In my analogy, the card dealer represents the host. The other aspects of the game correspond to the five OpenCL data structures that must be created and configured in a host application:
- Device: OpenCL devices correspond to the players. Just as a player receives cards from the dealer, a device receives kernels from the host. In code, a device is represented by a
- Kernel: OpenCL kernels correspond to the cards. A host application distributes kernels to devices in much the same way a dealer distributes cards to players. In code, a kernel is represented by a
- Program: An OpenCL program is like a deck of cards. In the same way that a dealer selects cards from a deck, the host selects kernels from a program. In code, a program is represented by a
- Command queue: An OpenCL command queue is like a player's hand. Each player receives cards as part of a hand, and each device receives kernels through a command queue. In code, a command queue is represented by a
- Context: OpenCL contexts correspond to card tables. Just as a card table makes it possible for players to transfer cards to one another, an OpenCL context allows devices to receive kernels and transfer data. In code, a context is represented by a
To clarify this analogy, Figure 2 shows how these five data structures work together in a host application. As shown, a program contains multiple functions, and each kernel encapsulates a function taken from the program.
Once you understand how host applications work, learning how to write code is straightforward. Most of the functions in the OpenCL API have straightforward names like
clCreateCommandQueue and
clGetDeviceInfo. Given the analogy, it should be clear that
clCreateKernel requires a
cl_program structure to execute, and
clCreateContext requires one or more
cl_device_id structures.
Shortcomings of the Analogy
My analogy has its flaws. Six significant shortcomings are given as follows:
- There's no mention of platforms. A platform is a data structure that identifies a vendor's implementation of OpenCL. Platforms make it possible to access devices. For example, you can access an Nvidia device through the Nvidia platform.
- A card dealer doesn't choose which players sit at the table. However, an OpenCL host selects which devices should be placed in a context.
- A card dealer can't deal the same card to multiple players, but an OpenCL host can dispatch the same kernel to multiple devices through their command queues.
- The analogy doesn't mention how devices execute kernels. Many OpenCL devices contain multiple processing elements, and each element may process a subset of the input data. The host identifies the number of work items that should be generated to execute the kernel.
- In a card game, the dealer distributes cards to players and each player arranges the cards to form a hand. In OpenCL, the host creates a command queue for each device and enqueues commands. One type of command tells a device to execute a kernel.
- In a card game, the dealer passes cards in a round-robin fashion. OpenCL sets no constraints on how host applications distribute kernels to devices.
At this point, you should understand that a large part of a host application's job involves creating kernels and deploying them to OpenCL-compliant devices such as GPUs, CPUs, or hybrid processors. Next, I'll discuss how these kernels execute on the devices.


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After many requests, I finally made a tutorial on how to tie a simple head scarf. It's really, really easy. I did this without looking in the mirror, so that should tell you how easy it is. Let's get started!
Start with a large, square scarf. I like my vintage silk scarves because they're soft and not bulky.
Fold one corner to the other to form a triangle.
Fold the corner down to about the middle, and then fold over again (but not all the way to the edge, because you want it to be a little thicker).
Put the scarf around your head with the ends in the front, making sure the wrong side of the scarf (the part where you can see the folds) is against your head.
Tie it in a loose knot at the front. I like to keep the whole scarf a little on the loose side (it will stay in place).
Tuck the ends behind/underneath the scarf.


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Living and Working in California
There's a reason California is called the Golden State. Beautiful weather and the exciting pace of life have made California the biggest draw in the West. Endless sunny days and boundless natural beauty beckon people from all walks of life and from all over the country. With picturesque mountains and more than 100 miles of beaches, the state offers easy access to a wealth of outdoor adventure. Plus, with the excitement of Universal Studios and Disneyland, and the rivalry of national sports teams, there's always something happening here.
This is a land of unlimited opportunity. Southern California, where Providence medical centers are located, is no exception. Providence serves several communities in the region. You can choose from five hospitals and other service locations. You'll have many opportunities to hone your professional skills.
California Hospitals
- Providence Holy Cross Medical Center
- Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center San Pedro
- Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center Torrance
- Providence Saint John's Health Center
- Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center
- Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center
- Providence TrinityCare Hospice
- Facey Medical Group
Providence CA Nursing InstituteLearn More
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Just over a week ago, Gov. John Hickenlooper announced that four Colorado school districts would take part in a pilot program to test the benefits of longer school days.
While Hickenlooper would likely find a cool reception to this idea among most students, a body of research suggests increased class time correlates with significant gains in academic performance.
Montezuma-Cortez Re-1 was not among the guinea pig districts chosen; that distinction went to districts in Denver, Boulder, Jefferson County and Adams County. Each will add at least 300 hours of learning time to the calendar year, according to the Associated Press.
Lauding the program as "exactly what America needs," Re-1 Superintendent Alex Carter was crestfallen to be omitted. In particular, he was frustrated districts were not given the opportunity to make a case for inclusion.
Carter heard about the program the morning of Monday, Dec. 3, the day it was first publicized in the media. He immediately dialed the state's deputy commissioner of education.
"I asked him 'whose stoop do I need to pitch my tent on to take part in this?' I wanted to throw our hat in the ring. It was a little devastating to find the selections were already made and it was a done deal," Carter said.
While stating he was glad the four Front Range districts will get to experiment, Carter questioned the wisdom of giving more hours to larger districts with greater resources.
"Those kids (up there) need more time, too. I'm not about building us up while knocking others down. But who is in most need?" he asked.
Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 currently holds class for 164 days per academic year (162 for elementary schools), the lowest threshold permitted by state law. For comparison, Durango School District 9R has 175 school days, a district where Carter previously worked in Virginia had 184, and Japanese schools are in session for more than 200 days. By the time Cortez students take their first standardized tests in third grade, Carter said, "Durango kids have 48 more days of learning time under their belts."
As ever, the reason is financial.
"It's a sheer function of cost," Carter said. "Telluride has $9,600 to spend per student (annually). In Cortez, we have $6,112. Class time is expensive because teachers need to be compensated for their hours."
Besides Colorado, the pilot program - called "Time Collaborative" - also is enlisting schools in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts and Tennessee. All together almost 20,000 students in 40 schools will participate over three years.
The program is partially funded by the National Center on Time & Learning, a nonprofit that promotes more face-to-face teacher-student interaction.
In an April 2012 report, David Farbman, senior researcher for NCTL, expounded on the benefits of more class time, which he called an "equalizer" to closing the so-called achievement gap between students from rich and poor families.
"Because schoolchildren from high-poverty backgrounds typically enter school behind their more affluent peers academically and continue to lag behind as they age, and because these students often lack meaningful learning opportunities outside school," he writes, "the...benefits of additional time within school hold special weight for them."
He also writes that in a four-state survey, only 48 percent of teachers believed they had sufficient time to cover their curriculum.
According to NCTL's website, more class hours allow students to examine and comprehend topics in greater depth, engage in hands-on projects and small group discussion, connect concepts across subjects, hear difficult material a second time and have their questioned answered.
In addition, NCTL notes that science, social studies, music, art and physical education classes are the first ones cut - if class time is in short supply - to give priority to tested subjects like math and reading.