By just about any measure this is a very good time to be an independent advisor. Ironically, however, the 2008 Moss Adams Financial Performance Study of Advisory Firms finds that the success of independent advisory firms contains within itself the seeds of what is one of the greatest challenges faced by the principals of those firms since the profession was founded. In the October cover story, Dan Inveen, senior research manager for the financial services practice at Moss Adams. reviews the industry’s record of success, but also outlines those salient ownership issues in detail and prescribe solutions to the ownership challenge inspired by real-world strategies of the best firms that are building transferable value and thereby creating succession options for the founding owners. Moreover, those successful firms’ best practices when it comes to succession also benefit the next generation of advisor owners, and most important, those firms’ clients.

After having skipped last year’s NexGen conference, Angie Herbers returned this year and found a world of change. To her surprise there were a lot of first-time attendees, but what she found most striking was that the NexGen advisors seemed to be more sophisticated, more knowledgeable, making comments and asking questions about technical planning issues and practice management that were far beyond the basics.

The affluent may have significant assets, but that doesn’t make them immune to economic chills, note Lewis Schiff in his monthly column, “The Affluentialist.” Even if retirement savings are in the multiple millions, affluent retirees and near-retirees will at least feel the shrinkage in their portfolios emotionally when they see a one-third drop in asset levels in a single year. Advisors with high-net-worth clients know that they need to remain responsive to the advanced-planning needs of families undergoing a true economic transition, as well as those with an exaggerated concern given the relative stability and size of their net worth.

With gas prices and foreclosures at an all-time high, debt levels soaring, and paltry savings rates that Americans are infamous for, consumers are in dire need of financial help—so much so that financial education is becoming an industry. Yes, an industry. This dawning of a new industry is best evidenced by the fact that numerous financial education firms have popped up over the last several years and because venture capital firms are eager to buy stakes in such companies.

In what could be further evidence of consolidation in the independent broker/dealer space—or of the enhanced value that winning Investment Advisor’s Broker/Dealer of the Year brings to honorees—another mid-sized independent B/D has been acquired by one of its larger brethren. This is the second of the four winning 2007 Broker/Dealers of the Year to be acquired in recent months; in August, Securities America said it would acquire independent B/D Brecek & Young, creating a firm that in 2007 would have had combined revenues of about $550 million and slightly more than 2,000 reps. Editorial Director Jamie Green checks in with the members of IA’s Broker/Dealer Advisory Board to see what it all means.

Members of Congress pressed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to explain why lawmakers should move quickly—as early as Friday, September 26—to pass legislation that would approve a $700 billion financial rescue plan.

At a time of near chaos on Wall Street, and confusion on the part of many investors, including some of your clients no doubt, help is on the way. The editors of Investment Advisor, Research, and Wealth Manager magazines have put together three panels of experts who will share their insights on separate Webinar conference calls occurring at 3:00 Eastern time on Monday, September 22, Wednesday, September 24, and Friday, September 26.

The United States government—both the Administration and the Congress—began moving over the weekend of September 20-21 to “address the underlying problem” in the financial system, in the September 19 words of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, by giving Treasury the ability to purchase up to $700 billion in troubled mortgage-related assets from financial institutions headquartered in the U.S. over the next two years.