RJ and Makay

SNL Financial’s quarterly release of the 50 biggest banks and thrifts in the U.S. by assets revealed just what a takeover can do with to a bank ranking. First Niagara Financial Group’s acquisition of NewAlliance Bancshares, Inc., worth $1.15  billion, propelled the regional bank up from number 46 to number 38 among the largest 50. First Niagara’s acquisition of NewAlliance will increase its balance sheet by 42%, plus expands its presence into Connecticut and Massachusetts.  Currently, First Niagara Financial serves upstate New York and western and eastern Pennsylvania. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2011.

Advisor confidence in the economy and stock market in August sunk to its lowest level in 18 months, according to The Advisor Confidence Index from Rydex/SGI.  The ACI results share the same pessimistic outlook as Schwab’s recent semiannual survey, which found half of advisors saying their clients are less optimistic about the market and the economy than they were a year ago. The index declined roughly 9% to 93.80 from a month earlier. The lowest point for the ACI was October 2008 when it dropped to 79.07.

Advisors surveyed by Rydex/SGI appear to be most concerned about the lack of meaningful job growth in the country. Among the advisors Rydex/SGI surveyed they also asked about the changes they made to their asset allocations in August, the results were:

Schwab recently released an Independent Advisor Outlook Study focused on RIAs. 1200 RIAs were surveyed. The survey was conducted by Koski Research.  RIAbiz writer, Brooke Southall, shares these points about the findings:

1. Social media isn’t very popular. Of the 1,200 RIAs polled for the semi-annual survey, only 13% consider themselves “eager learners.”  The majority, 41%, say they are “tentative users”, and the remaining 34% call themselves “skeptical users.”  If they used social media, most RIAs in the study (42%) chose LinkedIn for professional usage. Even though 45% of RIAs surveyed use Facebook, only 6% leverage it professionally, compared to 39% who use it personally. Even less popular is Twitter, with just 3% of RIAs reporting that they use it professionally, and only 7% saying they use it personally. Blogging isn’t popular either. Only 14% of RIAs say they keep a public journal, and of those, 8% blog professionally and 2% see their blogging as both personal and professional. These attitudes back up findings from another study on social media and RIAs by Pershing-Aite, and may be reviewed in 9 Things to Know About the “truth” Concerning RIA use of Social Media.