The top tier is the company‚s standard pure independent model, which consists of a payout of 92% to 95% and a $279 monthly service fee, which covers E&O insurance and technology, Flint says. This tier requires a minimum of $125,000 in business, he says.
Flint says he expects the program will be limited to Omaha for the remainder of the year before a decision is made on whether to roll it out nationally. "We‚re going to use this as the laboratory," he says. "At the end of this year we will evaluate if this is a desirable national platform."
Award Established To Honor Viragh
An award has been created in the name of Skip Viragh, who as founder of Rydex Investments became a pioneer in creating mutual funds geared specifically to advisors and their clients.
The award, created a month after Viragh‚s death in December, is sponsored by Rydex Investments in affiliation with Financial Advisor magazine.
The Skip Viragh Award will be presented annually "to a company or individual who offers a new and innovative service, benefit or product that positively impacts the financial advisor community and its clients," according to Rydex.
Applications will be taken until July 1 and the winner of the award will be announced at The Financial Advisor Symposium, which will be held October 6-8 in Chicago. The recipient of the award will have a wish funded in their name by Rydex Investments for a Make-A-Wish Foundation child. Financial Advisor magazine will also host an annual golf tournament in the name of the award to raise funds for the foundation.
Viragh founded Rydex Invest-ments in 1993 to fill what he felt was a void in the way mutual funds serviced registered investment advisors and their clients. During his tenure at the company, he pioneered the creation of the leveraged fund, an inverse equity fund, an inverse fixed-income fund and the first publicly available funds to be traded twice daily to investors at large.
The winner of the award will be chosen by an advisory board consisting of up to a dozen of Viragh‚s friends and family members and leaders of the profession.
Study Claims Investors Are Wiser
The rough-and-tumble ways of the stock market in recent years may have made investors hardier–and smarter, according to a new study.
The study of high-net-wealth individuals found that these investors are increasingly adopting the refined strategies of institutional investors to deal with the volatile market.