While others are making a big bet on the robo advisor wave, LPL is backing away. On a recent earnings call, LPL’s CEO Mark Casady explained why they are shutting down Nestwise, which had been an early entry into the robo advisor movement. Meanwhile, Schwab’s CEO Walt Bettinger sounded bullish about... READ MORE

While many see target date funds as a blunt instrument, assuming that all people set to retire within a five-year window have the same investment goals, most would also agree they are a better choice than investors managing their portfolios on their own. But what about managed accounts?  In a... READ MORE

With the graying of financial advisors, more and more are facing a difficult question: What’s next? A sister company of Cambridge Investment Research may have an answer for those who don’t want to give up control if they hand the keys to an aggregator, InvestmentNews reports. Continuity Partners,... READ MORE

Our newly updated DC Provider Consolidation Report shows that consolidation heated up dramatically in 2014, with 13 deals — up from six in 2013 and just three in 2008. The percentage of record keeper deals last year was 69% — up from 33% in 2013.To gain some insight into what we can expect in three... READ MORE

Like the Cleveland Cavaliers, the newly minted Empower-Retirement has put together a dream team combining three stars that, on paper, seem to mesh well.But as the Cavaliers are finding out, combining the talents of three organizations with different cultures can be challenging. So what’s the future... READ MORE

There’s no doubt that traditional indexing is cleaning up at the expense of active managers. But that space can be crowded — with Vanguard and BlackRock dominating and little room for differentiation. So some firms like Pimco and JP Morgan are making moves to expand into the smart beta market,... READ MORE

Despite media attention surrounding the Millennial Generation’s relatively poor economic outcomes during the Great Recession, a new analysis by researchers at the Federal Reserve finds that they have fared better on many measures than both current older adults and earlier young adults. According... READ MORE

The fallout from the accounting errors by ARCP, which controls 50% of all non-traded REIT sales, not only forced chairman and founder Nicholas Schorsch to resign and walk away from hundreds of millions of dollars, but, given ARCP’s size, threatens the entire market as well.Further complicating... READ MORE

In a sign that the DCIO market is maturing, recent research from Ignites (subscription or free registration required) shows that hiring today and in the future will be focused on internal wholesalers, marketing and product specialists — ending the run of blindly increasing external wholesaler staff... READ MORE