Products September 30, 2010

National Financial Introduces Collection of Fee-Based Trading Tools

National Financial, a Fidelity Investments company and provider of custody and clearing services to broker/dealers, announced a suite of fee-based trading capabilities into its Streetscape brokerage workstation.
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The Streetscape Fee-Based Tools are designed for the more than 3,000 independent registered investment advisers (RIA) client firms that use Fidelity WealthCentral.  The purpose of the tools is to bring together trading and account management capabilities with third-party portfolio modeling applications in a Web-based environment within National Financial’s workstation.

According to a press release, the five major components of the offering include:

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  • Block Trading: Allows users to place a single trade that when executed, can be allocated to multiple client accounts with each benefitting from the same average share price.
  • Rebalancing/Modeling: Enables the management of client portfolios to assigned models (adviser-created or imported) and the generation of trades required to bring positions back to within defined tolerances.
  • Account Grouping: Provides ability to group client accounts to assist with viewing and generating transactions across multiple accounts.
  • Data Import and Export: Allows for the import or export of customer account data and orders to feed between third-party or proprietary applications such as Advent Software, Inc. and Morningstar, Inc. enabling users to conduct analysis and trading more efficiently.
  • Reporting: Generates reports to help simplify the management of accounts and help provide enhanced customer service. Examples include: Transaction Report that tracks transaction history either on a daily basis or using specific date range; and Percent Invested Report which identifies accounts that are either under or over-invested to a specified cash level.

“As a provider of one of the most extensive offerings for hybrid brokers and advisers, the fee-based tools are the latest demonstration of how we’re leveraging the best of Fidelity on behalf of our clients,” said Sanjiv Mirchandani, president, National Financial. “The entire suite of tools integrated into Streetscape can help strengthen the ability of our clients to recruit and retain advisers and brokers by allowing them to more effectively manage their clients’ commission- and fee-based accounts.”

Data & Research September 30, 2010

Workforce and Retiree Demographics Will Shift as Boomers Age

A report from the MetLife Mature Market Institute says those born between 1946 and 1955 will transform the traditional concept of retirement.
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Many Boomers are unable to retire as anticipated, the study shows, due to several possible reasons, including: debt from putting their children through college, borrowing against their homes and, in many cases, second home ownership.  Since they expect to live longer than their predecessors, they fear outliving their savings, and their financial nest eggs have been severely impacted by the economic downturn. In addition, their family finances have also been stretched by the fact that one in four have adult children still living with them.  

The report, “The MetLife Report on Early Boomers: How America’s Leading Edge Baby Boomers Will Transform Aging, Work & Retirement,” also notes that in the past, about three-quarters of men and women would be fully retired within four to five years from their 65th birthday.  But by the time the first Early Boomers approach age 70, fewer than half of those ages 65 to 69 will have retired. Early Boomers, now numbering 36 million, have swelled the 55 to 64 age demographic more in the past decade than in the previous 30 years and made that group the largest it has ever been.  

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“This group of highly educated individuals is also apt to find a welcoming employment market where their experience is desirable and where employers will recognize that they do not require benefits like health insurance due to their eligibility for Medicare,” said Sandra Timmermann,  director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute, in the press release.  “The preponderance of white-collar workers in this group will also make it easier for them to continue working.”  

Key findings of the study include: 

  • Over the next 10 years aging Early Boomers will result in a 50% rise in the number of people 65 to 74 years old, a growth rate for that cohort not seen in 50 years. 
  • Early Boomer men ages 60 to 64 have the highest level of educational attainment (37% college graduates) of any age group of men, which means they are more likely to work after age 65. 
  • There are 1.3 million more Early Boomer women than men. It is projected that by 2020 there will be 2 million more Early Boomer women than men. By then at least one-third of households ages 65 to 74 will be headed by women. 
  • It is estimated that at least two-thirds of Early Boomers are grandparents and the Census Bureau reports a rising number are responsible for their grandchildren. 
  • The labor force participation rate of Early Boomer men and women is at a 15-year high (65.2%); trends suggest that it will rise further in the future. 
  • Among working Early Boomers, three-quarters of women and three-fifths of men had white-collar jobs that paid more than other jobs and were less physically demanding. That will facilitate more of them staying in the workforce over the next decade.  

 

The report can be downloaded from http://www.MatureMarketInstitute.com or ordered by e-mailing MatureMarketInstitute@metlife.com or by writing to: MetLife Mature Market Institute, 57 Greens Farms Road, Westport, CT 06880.

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