It is a very competitive market out there right now, with financial advisers offering a range of investment options and insurance products. A number of studies have shown how important it is to provide timely information and communications, especially to top clients, with all the market uncertainty and turmoil. An easy way for a financial adviser to differentiate his or her practice — and set clients’ expectations — is to create and communicate service levels.

The Medallion Group of five independent investment advisory firms has joined the Fusion Advisor Network’s partnership with NFP Securities Inc. The additions bring the number of Fusion/NFP partnership firms to 125. Fusion provides business consulting and practice management services while NFP is the network’s broker-dealer

T he world’s tallest skyscraper has unexpectedly closed to the public a month after its lavish opening, disappointing tourists headed for the observation deck and casting doubt over plans to welcome its first permanent occupants in the coming weeks. Electrical problems are at least partly to blame for the closure of the Burj Khalifa’s viewing platform — the only part of the half-mile high tower open yet.

I s there any way out of Europe’s debt morass? Greece’s efforts to restore confidence in its finances have only called attention to its woes, and now investors are fretting debt contagion could spread to other countries, starting with similarly troubled Portugal, but with markets wondering who’s next. Some experts believe a bailout may be needed to prevent a continental conflagration – but EU leaders resist the idea, while going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund would be a humiliating step they’re unlikely to take.

Knowing how to invest money in 2010 and beyond is crucial, because if you invest money too casually or invest too aggressively you’re asking for trouble if we revisit the credit crisis. Knowing how to invest in good times is one thing; and how to invest money in 2010 and beyond is quite another.

Oklahoma State University’s athletic fund and Lincoln National Life Insurance Co. are embroiled in a legal flap over a failed charitable-insurance-funding plan.