Breakaway Brokers

Incorporating debt planning into your services helps your clients achieve a more comprehensive and sustainable financial future.

Many advisors aren’t familiar with financial phobias. They are common and can be debilitating.

Why has there been a reluctance within the advisory profession to actively collect, much less leverage client experience feedback?

Understanding and managing your firm’s practice growth multiplier is your ticket to enduring success, higher profits, and a more rewarding practice.

New tests are making it easier for doctors to detect cancer and provide targeted treatments.

I lost my dad, Alfred Munro Flaxington, this past weekend.

Communications should be planned and thoughtful. Rarely – if ever – should a serious message be delivered without warning.

Top venture firms are betting that rapid advances in artificial intelligence and the public fascination with ChatGPT will help tech startups to transform healthcare after years of Silicon Valley struggling to move the needle in the industry.

Here are the six things you can do to create stellar content and increase your odds of going viral.

It’s time to focus on your happiness. Here are some tips, including some unconventional suggestions.

Financial advisors frequently attribute their marketing challenges to not finding that one magic solution. But the true culprits are deeper, foundational issues.

When your client conveys vast amounts of information – as is typically the case in a discovery meeting – it’s unrealistic to expect you to retain that information without writing it down. That’s about to change.

Let’s look at the keys to creating a successful podcast.

Here are five ways to take your COI relationships to the next level – and maximize your business along the way.

Equity traders reeling from the market’s worst stretch since February face some pivotal events in the days ahead, and a closely watched speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell may not even be the biggest test of all.

Halfway through the third quarter, the economy is looking surprisingly strong. A tracker from the Atlanta branch of the Federal Reserve has real gross domestic product growth, based on the limited data we've gotten so far, tracking at 5.8%, which would be the fastest for a non-pandemic quarter in 20 years.

There are tools to help you level up in client behavior, experience, and engagement.

Readers of this publication know the costs of an investment product reduce the net return and consider cost as an important criterion for selecting investments to make up client portfolios. But how do advisors define costs, and how important is cost reduction compared to other portfolio objectives?

Financial journalism has a problem. Apart from a few writers such as Michael Lewis, it is essentially bought and paid for by the financial industry itself – especially, investment management.

European banks are rightly being criticized for failing to pass on interest-rate increases to customers. But is it any wonder they’re so unafraid of losing business? Compared to their US counterparts, European financial institutions often face less competition from alternative cash-like investments.

How good are you at motivating your staff? Are they growing and learning? Are they consistently progressing?

Signs of slowing price pressures and wage growth have generated a lot of excitement about a soft landing for the US economy, where inflation glides back toward 2% without a painful recession.

Federal Reserve officials at their policy meeting in July largely remained concerned that inflation would fail to recede and that further interest-rate increases would be needed. At the same time, cracks in that consensus were also becoming more apparent.

Here are two suggestions that can save you money or time, especially if content marketing is part of your strategy.

How do you cultivate a successful referral program?

I’ll outline content ideas to help your top sellers, C-suite leaders, or founders emerge as thought leaders.

Here are the top five mistakes advisors make in client meetings.

I’ll share some of the insights my team has gathered in 2023.

In a year of unpleasant surprises from China's economy, here's a development we should have foreseen: The central bank lowered interest rates. With growth disappointing and prices declining, Tuesday's easing from the People's Bank of China ought to have been a no-brainer.

Investors are the least pessimistic on stocks since February of last year, before the Federal Reserve began one of the most aggressive tightening cycles in decades, according to Bank of America Corp.’s latest global survey of fund managers.

Investors are bailing out of the biggest exchange-traded fund devoted to Treasuries at the fastest pace since markets were hammered during the early months of the pandemic.

Unpacking the details of last week’s consumer price index report, the news was good: Inflationary pressure continues to slowly subside, while an economic “soft landing” — in which the Federal Reserve is able to stabilize prices without causing a recession — is starting to look more realistic.

Some couples may have what can be termed "faux" financial intimacy, where there is no tension or conflict because they avoid talking about money.

IUL is a popular investment, thanks to aggressive marketing. Before your clients succumb to high-pressure sales tactics, here’s a cautionary tale based on another lifetime purchase decision – buying an engagement ring.

The old playbook of selling emerging-market bonds when Treasury yields spike is being upended by the positive dynamics favoring developing-nation debt.

Investors hammered Chinese assets and those of developing nations relying on its sustained growth a day after US President Joe Biden described the country’s economic woes as a “ticking time bomb.”

It could take just a 1% move in the S&P 500 — up or down — every day for a week for the rally in US stocks to come under significant pressure.

In 1949, the list of the country’s most affluent metropolitan areas was dominated by Midwestern industrial cities.

A key measure of US consumer prices rose only modestly for a second month, bolstering hopes that the Federal Reserve can tame inflation without sparking a recession.

Twenty years ago, the answer to this question was obvious. Wirehouses had better technology compared to any other firm or affiliation model.

Why don’t more advisors recommend simple portfolios?

The reaction to Fitch Ratings’ recent downgrading of US government debt was more revealing than the announcement itself. Citing concerns about America’s long-term fiscal position and the risk that Washington’s political dysfunction could make matters worse, the company marked US debt down from AAA to AA+.

Bitcoin may be closer to bursting out of a period of unusually low volatility if chart patterns and the token’s history are any guide.

Advisors are increasingly turning to OCIOs to differentiate their firms, increase profitability and scale their businesses through gained efficiencies.

The most frequent question I’m asked when mentoring newer advisors is, “How do I demonstrate my value to prospects?”

Everyone who has ever invested in Mr. Market at any time in recorded history, except for those who started investing at the end of 2021 or the first few quarters of 2022, made money.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. jumped to a record high after its Saturday earnings report showed an operating profit for the second quarter that exceeded Wall Street expectations.

Bulging sales of US Treasuries are about to deliver a major test of investor demand and determine whether a selloff has room to run, as the market braces for the biggest round of refunding auctions since last year.

Investors planning for retirement are facing seven significant challenges.

What is the secret to digital marketing that drives website traffic and leads?