More than ever, brokers are dealing with a very emotional commodity--people's futures. That was the message from PaineWebber CEO Don Marron to attendees at the September Securities Industry Association's retail management conference Sept. 16-17 in...

While the SEC continues to investigate alleged sales practice violations at the Washington, D.C., branch of Wheat First Securities (now Wheat First Union), several clients of the firm have confirmed to RR some of the allegations first brought to...

Merrill Lynch is relaxing its health insurance policies beginning Jan. 1, 1999, allowing brokers and other employees to add "domestic partners" and extended family members to their plans.Pat Crowley, Merrill's senior director of organizational...

Salomon Smith Barney has introduced an enhanced payout schedule for inactive accounts that brokers awaken.According to Tom Matthews, SSB's director of national sales, inactive accounts are defined as accounts that have done less than $100 in gross...

The NASDR appears to have done nothing with a disciplinary referral it received from an arbitration panel more than a year ago over Dean Witters refusal to follow customer instructions to transfer accounts.On Aug.26, 1997, NASDR arbitrators filed...

Assume you're at a party, and everyone in the room is drinking punch. You decide to have some as well. But when you get to the punch bowl, it's empty. And every time you return to the punch bowl thereafter, you experience the same. Who could blame...

More than half of the 50-plus brokers in Prudential Securities West Bloomfield, Mich., branch have banded together to protest the firms new noncompete policy. The brokers sent a signed letter to the firms senior management refusing to sign what...

As the SEC and state regulators begin to investigate brokerage policies on penalty bids for brokers who flip IPOs, retail brokers say the issue doesnt affect them since most of their clients are long-term holders. And reps dont appear to have...

If state securities regulators have their way, the Series 65 could be replaced with a new exam shortly after the New Year. The exam, designed to replace the 10-year-old Series 65 test, which critics claim does little more than test an advisers...

When regulators jointly settled a big sales practice case in May with NationsBank and NationsSecurities, SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. defended to reporters the $6.75 million in total fines. The case involved alleged misleading sales practices in...