The President Of A Financial Firm Slammed An 'Offensive' Leaked White House Memo

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An "Offensive" Leaked White House Memo Was Slammed By The President Of A Financial Firm (InvestmentNews)

Adam Antoniades, the president of an independent broker-dealer, Cetera Financial Group, slammed a leaked White House memo that purports to show that sales incentives for financial advisers cost retirement savers billions of dollars annually, reports Mark Schoeff Jr.

The document "accuses all financial advisers of defrauding their clients... The ignorance displayed in the memo is quite shocking to me. It's frankly offensive," he said.

This memo comes in the middle of an on-going debate over whether or not regulation of financial advisory services should be increased.

Natural Gas Is Going To See Another Year Of Weak Prices (Advisor Perspectives)

"The 2015 outlook for natural gas is for continued oversupply to weigh on prices," writes Nicholas Johnson and Greg Sharenow of Pimco. "Warmer-than-usual winter weather could cut household demand, which could lead to a more severe price response as power generation might not prove to be the backstop it used to be."

Back in 2012, coal-to-gas switching helped balance the market, but now a larger percentage of coal generation has already been replaced with natural gas, which means there is less capacity to absorb further natural gas surplus, they write.

That being said, "the outlook improves as the time horizon extends" considering the growing industrial demand, more coal plants closing, and more imports to Mexico.

Popular Super Bowl Commercials Used To Help A Company's Stock - But Not So Much Anymore (Financial Advisor Magazine)

The companies with the most likable ads got a "positive bump" in their stocks from 1989 to 2005 on the Monday after the Super Bowl, according to a study conducted by Kenneth A. Kim, the chief financial strategist for Eqis Capital. However, when he went back to update his study recently, the pattern didn't hold up.

"Recently, the most likable rankings have been dominated by Doritos (owned by Pepsi) and Budweiser (owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev). Familiarity has bred indifference, so people have not been as eager to buy the stocks of those companies the next day," writes William Conroy.

Ameriprise Profits Are Up As The Number Of Advisors Dropped (Financial Planning)

Ameriprise Financial's wealth management profits grew to $212 million for the fourth quarter, up from $160 million for the same period a year ago. And for the year, the firm reported $792 million, up 34% year-over-year, reports Andrew Welsch.

However, advisor headcount was down. The number of employees fell to 2083, down from 2205 a year ago. Additionally, retention rates were slightly down as the figure fell to 91.2% from 92% for the same period a year ago.

The Fed Didn't Say Much In Its Latest FOMC Statement But There Were A Few Updates (Charles Schwab)

The Fed didn't make any major changes in its latest statement, but there were a few updates. "...one of the more significant changes in the FOMC statement was to note it expects inflation to 'decline further in the near term' before rising 'gradually toward 2% over the medium term,'" writes Liz Ann Sonders.

Additionally, there was also a change regarding oil prices, writes Sonders. The committee previously wrote that "inflation declined further below the Committee's longer-run objective, partly reflecting declines in energy prices," but now updated the word "partly" to "largely," which Sonders suggests means that the "Fed puts much of the blame for low inflation on oil prices and considers it transitory."