Accenture Opens Application Process for 2007 Scholarship Fund for American Indian Students"
Accenture is now accepting applications for its scholarship fund program for American Indian students. The Accenture American Indian Scholarship Fund supports students with demonstrated leadership ability and financial need entering fields of professional study.
Parisian Family Office, Founder & CEO. Started Wall Street, '82. Drexel Burnham alum in LaJolla, CA. Founded Native American Advisors, Chippewa Partners. '95. Chippewa. Conservative. Raised on reservations. Was NYSE/FINRA arbitrator. Trading O'Neil/CANSLIM methodology at PAMELOT, TN farm, GHOST RANCH, MT, on the Yellowstone River, or CASA TULE', their winter camp in Los Cabos, Mexico. Will always be, a relentless optimist with radical gratitude.
Parisian Family Office, Founder & CEO. Started Wall Street, '82. Drexel Burnham alum in LaJolla, CA. Founded Native American Advisors, Chippewa Partners. '95. Chippewa. Conservative. Raised on reservations. Was NYSE/FINRA arbitrator. Trading O'Neil/CANSLIM methodology at PAMELOT, TN farm, GHOST RANCH, MT, on the Yellowstone River, or CASA TULE', their winter camp in Los Cabos, Mexico. Will always be, a relentless optimist with radical gratitude.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Oil.............
Tonight I happened by the parking lot of the Goodwill store when returning from celebration of a birthday with great friends. The parking lot was empty. What took my attention was the black color of the pavement in the parking spaces. Motor oil. Lots of it having dripped out of engines in need of some TLC.
The relationship between the amount of motor oil dripped on the pavement and the net worth of the customer base must be in direct correlation. That said, I know plenty of millionaires who shop there as well and drive some very nice rigs. I know. I manage their money.
Another reason how the rich get and stay wealthy.
The relationship between the amount of motor oil dripped on the pavement and the net worth of the customer base must be in direct correlation. That said, I know plenty of millionaires who shop there as well and drive some very nice rigs. I know. I manage their money.
Another reason how the rich get and stay wealthy.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Blue Angels.................
A couple of weeks ago as the Carnival ship "Miracle" deported the Port of Tampa I was watching a late afternoon Blue Angles show from atop the ship with my Kahles binoculars.
Always a beautiful sight. I have had the opportunity to watch them in 3 different states and they always fire up the massive crowds. The sound of freedom is a beautiful thing with the speed and grace of such beautiful machinery.
My prayers go out to the Blue Angels family in the crash of one of their own.
Always a beautiful sight. I have had the opportunity to watch them in 3 different states and they always fire up the massive crowds. The sound of freedom is a beautiful thing with the speed and grace of such beautiful machinery.
My prayers go out to the Blue Angels family in the crash of one of their own.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Records are made to be ________!
April 1, 1982 found me at the offices of Kidder, Peabody & Company, Inc. That day the Dow stood at 680 and trading volumes were about what a good quant arb program can put on in afew nanoseconds. I want to congratulate the Market Beast for taking us into new high ground this week and also congratulate those market participants riding the trend.
That said, the stock market goes higher almost every day, but yet the dollar falls by an equal amount every day. Everyone on TV is saying what a great market environment this is, but what good is making money if that money isn't worth anything? Has anyone looked at the Euro or Yuan this week? If you can make tails of how these currencies are rallying against the dollar please give me a call. We may run some commission flow through your firm if you make sense.
That said, the stock market goes higher almost every day, but yet the dollar falls by an equal amount every day. Everyone on TV is saying what a great market environment this is, but what good is making money if that money isn't worth anything? Has anyone looked at the Euro or Yuan this week? If you can make tails of how these currencies are rallying against the dollar please give me a call. We may run some commission flow through your firm if you make sense.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Registered Investment Advisors beat the brokers.............
BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- Anyone who has ever coached youth sports knows that you "play to the rules." That means if really young kids are required by their league to make three passes before scoring, you work on making the passes; if older kids get to play using high school or college rules, your focus changes to playing at that level.
So when the game is investment advice and the rules change, you have to wonder how it will affect overall play for consumers.
Nowhere is that more true than with the recent appellate court decision that ruled in favor of the Financial Planning Association and against the Securities and Exchange Commission in a lawsuit that challenged the rules of just who could hold themselves out as a financial planner and what standards apply to various types of adviser.
On the surface, there is no question that the decision is a victory for traditional financial planners and for consumers. But there is some question as to the potential fallout now that the rules have been changed.
To see why, consider the rules, the changes and how the play of the financial-advice game could be forever altered.
The Financial Planning Association, which brought the lawsuit against the SEC in 2004, argued that regulators had rewritten the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 in a way that allowed brokers to offer the same advice as registered investment advisers without the fiduciary responsibility to put a client's needs and interests first.
In a split decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that brokers can only give financial advice if they are not paid for it.
You read that right: brokers must give either no advice or free advice. If they receive fees for providing financial advice, they must register with the SEC as investment advisers and adopt a fiduciary responsibility for their customers.
That appears confusing, but it's fairly simple: Investment advisers, which can include virtually all stripes of "wealth planner," are paid for providing counsel (and not just the sale of investments) and have that fiduciary requirement to their clients. Broker-dealers don't have that fiduciary requirement; without meeting that higher standard -- by registering as investment advisers -- they would be violating the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 if they charged consumers for advice.
The distinction is important because the rule affects many of the wealth advisers who work for full-service brokerage firms. Since 1999, when new rules allowed the brokerage houses to offer fee-based accounts, the big firms have been particularly aggressive in offering advisory accounts, with more and more brokers describing themselves as "financial advisers."
Number of fee-based accounts jumps
Cerulli Associates, a Boston firm that researches the brokerage business, says that fee-based advisory accounts grew by nearly 20% over the past three years. Those accounts, which now hold more than $272 billion, are particularly popular with new clients; those customers may not be quite clear on just what they are paying for.
The current issue of Smart Money magazine includes a terrific piece by Dyan Machan, covering an effort to gain empirical evidence on how eight big brokerage houses work with new clients.
"Of the eight brokers we visited," Machan's article says, "five offered us financial plans even though, by critics' standards, they weren't qualified."
The question, however, becomes what happens now.
The Financial Planning Association, in bringing the suit, wanted to create a legal standard for what financial advisers provide, and wanted to stress the importance of putting the customer's interests first. That goal is admirable.
If the SEC wants to continue to fight the case, the next step would be the U.S. Supreme Court, but it's hard to imagine that kind of effort would actually succeed. While one appellate judge sided with the regulators, the majority opinion so thoroughly broke down the SEC that I have a hard time believing the agency will go that route.
A lot of the issues around brokers holding themselves out as investment advisers had to do with marketing and exactly how brokers positioned their services. The court ruling makes no mention of marketing; it simply says that charging for advice is "special compensation" that forces brokers to be regulated as investment advisers.
Possible setbacks
The way a brokerage firm might play the game in this new environment would be to end its fee-based services. If enough firms stop charging asset-management fees and go back to commission structures, that's a big potential loss for consumers. While every form of advisory agreement has some form of conflict, most observers suggest that fee-based arrangements are the closest to being ideal; this ruling could set back the progress made on this front by a decade or more.
While brokers may not have had a legal reason to live up to the fiduciary standard, there is no doubt that many of them do. Plenty of optimists in the financial-planning community had hoped that the brokers of the world would someday cozy up to the fiduciary standard; those hopes would now appear dashed.
The one thing financial planners liked about the old rule was that it took away the broker's ability to be called a "financial adviser."
Brokerage firms might now say they provide financial-planning services for a fee, using some separate subsidiary company to provide the actual plan and burying commissions in the process, making it harder for consumers to know precisely what they are getting for their money and how their money is being spent.
The moral of this whole story is that this victory for the financial-planning business doesn't settle anything for consumers.
While the rules of the investment-advice game are changing, consumers must continue to start the financial-planning process with the same old questions about how advisers get paid, what they provide for those dollars and whose interests come first, because unless you have a scorecard and a rulebook, it's tough to tell who you might want to have playing on your financial team.
So when the game is investment advice and the rules change, you have to wonder how it will affect overall play for consumers.
Nowhere is that more true than with the recent appellate court decision that ruled in favor of the Financial Planning Association and against the Securities and Exchange Commission in a lawsuit that challenged the rules of just who could hold themselves out as a financial planner and what standards apply to various types of adviser.
On the surface, there is no question that the decision is a victory for traditional financial planners and for consumers. But there is some question as to the potential fallout now that the rules have been changed.
To see why, consider the rules, the changes and how the play of the financial-advice game could be forever altered.
The Financial Planning Association, which brought the lawsuit against the SEC in 2004, argued that regulators had rewritten the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 in a way that allowed brokers to offer the same advice as registered investment advisers without the fiduciary responsibility to put a client's needs and interests first.
In a split decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that brokers can only give financial advice if they are not paid for it.
You read that right: brokers must give either no advice or free advice. If they receive fees for providing financial advice, they must register with the SEC as investment advisers and adopt a fiduciary responsibility for their customers.
That appears confusing, but it's fairly simple: Investment advisers, which can include virtually all stripes of "wealth planner," are paid for providing counsel (and not just the sale of investments) and have that fiduciary requirement to their clients. Broker-dealers don't have that fiduciary requirement; without meeting that higher standard -- by registering as investment advisers -- they would be violating the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 if they charged consumers for advice.
The distinction is important because the rule affects many of the wealth advisers who work for full-service brokerage firms. Since 1999, when new rules allowed the brokerage houses to offer fee-based accounts, the big firms have been particularly aggressive in offering advisory accounts, with more and more brokers describing themselves as "financial advisers."
Number of fee-based accounts jumps
Cerulli Associates, a Boston firm that researches the brokerage business, says that fee-based advisory accounts grew by nearly 20% over the past three years. Those accounts, which now hold more than $272 billion, are particularly popular with new clients; those customers may not be quite clear on just what they are paying for.
The current issue of Smart Money magazine includes a terrific piece by Dyan Machan, covering an effort to gain empirical evidence on how eight big brokerage houses work with new clients.
"Of the eight brokers we visited," Machan's article says, "five offered us financial plans even though, by critics' standards, they weren't qualified."
The question, however, becomes what happens now.
The Financial Planning Association, in bringing the suit, wanted to create a legal standard for what financial advisers provide, and wanted to stress the importance of putting the customer's interests first. That goal is admirable.
If the SEC wants to continue to fight the case, the next step would be the U.S. Supreme Court, but it's hard to imagine that kind of effort would actually succeed. While one appellate judge sided with the regulators, the majority opinion so thoroughly broke down the SEC that I have a hard time believing the agency will go that route.
A lot of the issues around brokers holding themselves out as investment advisers had to do with marketing and exactly how brokers positioned their services. The court ruling makes no mention of marketing; it simply says that charging for advice is "special compensation" that forces brokers to be regulated as investment advisers.
Possible setbacks
The way a brokerage firm might play the game in this new environment would be to end its fee-based services. If enough firms stop charging asset-management fees and go back to commission structures, that's a big potential loss for consumers. While every form of advisory agreement has some form of conflict, most observers suggest that fee-based arrangements are the closest to being ideal; this ruling could set back the progress made on this front by a decade or more.
While brokers may not have had a legal reason to live up to the fiduciary standard, there is no doubt that many of them do. Plenty of optimists in the financial-planning community had hoped that the brokers of the world would someday cozy up to the fiduciary standard; those hopes would now appear dashed.
The one thing financial planners liked about the old rule was that it took away the broker's ability to be called a "financial adviser."
Brokerage firms might now say they provide financial-planning services for a fee, using some separate subsidiary company to provide the actual plan and burying commissions in the process, making it harder for consumers to know precisely what they are getting for their money and how their money is being spent.
The moral of this whole story is that this victory for the financial-planning business doesn't settle anything for consumers.
While the rules of the investment-advice game are changing, consumers must continue to start the financial-planning process with the same old questions about how advisers get paid, what they provide for those dollars and whose interests come first, because unless you have a scorecard and a rulebook, it's tough to tell who you might want to have playing on your financial team.
Neal Boortz said it best .........
"Now here's something that I have yet to see reported in the mainstream media. Earlier this year the Virginia General Assembly failed to act on House Bill 1572. The citizens of Virginia are permitted to carry concealed weapons if they get a proper permit from the state government --- unless you are on a college campus. This bill would have allowed college students and employees to carry handguns on campus --- with appropriate permits, of course. It died in subcommittee. After the bill was thrown out and up steps Larry Hincker, a spokesman for Virginia Tech, the site of the carnage, who says "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."
VA Tech.............
We live in an open society. Just ask George Soros. The gun safes in my homes hold some great firearms. Together they haven't killed as many people as Ted Kennedys' car.
They nuts among us are hard to weed out. The hundreds of millions among us, millions criminally among us and your government unable to do anything about them, can hide and remain reclusive for long periods of time. Many of the criminal aliens who I have hired over the years to do yard work have figured out how to come into America without getting caught. All of them came into America on foot. At least that is what they all told me.
The mindset of the madman running through VA Tech we may never know.
Guns by themselves cause no more crime than pencils cause missspelled words.
Psychopaths with guns are very dangerous. Anywhere in the world. Period.
They nuts among us are hard to weed out. The hundreds of millions among us, millions criminally among us and your government unable to do anything about them, can hide and remain reclusive for long periods of time. Many of the criminal aliens who I have hired over the years to do yard work have figured out how to come into America without getting caught. All of them came into America on foot. At least that is what they all told me.
The mindset of the madman running through VA Tech we may never know.
Guns by themselves cause no more crime than pencils cause missspelled words.
Psychopaths with guns are very dangerous. Anywhere in the world. Period.
Monday, April 16, 2007
30004
The offices of Chippewa Partners are nice. Very nice. But what city are we in, you ask.
With the change in the name of the "city" where we are located from Alpharetta to Milton I don't know what city I should call home. The USPS will answer to both. So will I.
It's all in the 30004.
With the change in the name of the "city" where we are located from Alpharetta to Milton I don't know what city I should call home. The USPS will answer to both. So will I.
It's all in the 30004.
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