For decades, investors and academics alike have sought the magic bullet, the one data point that would predict the future performance of mutual funds. Hundreds of studies looked at a variety of variables including past performance, expense ratio...

As the popularity of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) grows, financial advisors are increasingly pressed to separate the wheat from the chaff, the meat from the gristle, the men from the boys or whatever other stale clich comes to mind. Industry...

It sure is a great time to be a financial advisor. Consider this: Since 1995, the number of millionaire households in the U.S. has more than doubled. Never before had so many Americans become so rich, so quickly, writes Robert Frank in his new...

For most Americans, the most important asset class is not the stock portfolio, it's the house. No wonder some homeowners are getting a bit nervous. The sub-prime mortgage fiasco is forcing up the cost of money, particularly on jumbo mortgages...

Subprime loans, margin lending, hedge fund collapses—for a majority of advisors the storm is still outside their clients’ portfolios.

Most financial advisors lust after rich people. Lust is perhaps an arresting choice of words, but it does accurately describe the intensity of desire an advisor suddenly feels when a liquid millionaire is referred to him. This is precisely what...

Exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are hot. That's right, ETNs that's no typo. Do not confuse ETNs with their cousins, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which because of their low cost and tax efficiency have become the financial world's iPod equivalent...

Here's a list of the fastest growing asset managers, based on percent change in AUM among firms with assets between $1 billion and $10 billion for the 12-month period ending April 2007. Topping the list is Kinetics Asset Management, which is...

Don't panic yet, but in case you haven't heard, the SEC is taking a hard look at a major source of pay for reps: 12b-1 fees. Sure, the subject of 12b-1 reform has been bandied about for more than a decade. But SEC director of investment management...