Critical Warning From Rogue Economist

NEW YORK- Big technology and Internet companies tumbled again Monday, leading to broad losses across the stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly fell 500, triggered partly be a steep 4.5 percent decline for Boeing Co.. Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide Investment Management, said investors are dumping the high-profile…

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 can mean good news for folks standing to inherit property. Now that a taxpayer’s lifetime estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax exemption is more than $11 million, most people should no longer fear transfer taxes and can fix obsolete estate plans or create new ones to reduce the capital gains burden on heirs and…

What are the primary considerations in saving for retirement? Starting early in your career, put away as much money as possible. Albert Einstein once remarked, the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest- the earlier you start saving, the more you accumulate.

Beginning in 2018, the TCJA effectively doubled the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax exemptions for U.S. citizens. These exemptions now amount to $11.2 million for individuals and $22.4 million for married couples. On Jan. 1,2026, the exemption limits will return to 2017 amounts adjusted for inflation.

The past decade has seen an explosion in new exchange-traded funds. Investors have flocked to ETFs because they trade like individual stocks, but offer the diversification benefits of mutual funds- all at a low cost. But not all funds attract investors, and ETFs are dying off at a near-record rate this year.

For many financial advisors, it seems, environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing has come to mean “green” in more ways than one.

Vanguard and BlackRock are taking on the socially responsible market with attractively priced products that incorporate ESG factors into their methodology.

Prior to the Department of Labor’ s 2015 fiduciary rule proposal, funds paying higher loads to brokers tended to attract more assets. But a new report by Morningstar found a statistically significant shift away from load sharing, with a notable reversal in flows to those type of funds after the DOL fiduciary rule was proposed. Morningstar’ s report builds off of a…

The traits you use to define success are directly related to how you can excel in this business. Continue to embody the ideas above and add to your list, just as I have throughout my career. Observe your mentors and other professionals across industries to round out your qualities and strive toward success.

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION COMMISSIONER KARA STEIN, DELIVERS REMARKS AT THE 2018 SEC STAFF ROUNDTABLE ON THE PROXY PROCESS, AS RELEASED BY THE SEC. Welcome to the SEC staff`s roundtable on proxy process. I would also like to thank Michele Anderson, Julie Davis, and the entire SEC team who worked so hard to bring this roundtable to fruition.

Wells Fargo Institutional Retirement and Trust has published its ninth annual Retirement Study, finding once again that employees are being asked to shoulder more responsibility for directing their own retirement savings effort. Lori Lucas, president and CEO of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, helped Wells Fargo leaders Joe Ready, head of Wells…

While the IAC is optimistic about the SEC’s REG BI proposal, it offered a few changes for consideration after reviewing public comments. A recent statement from the IAC suggests that their previous suggestions were not taken by the SEC.

Today, the resulting firm of HBKS Wealth Advisors has 100 employees, does business in five states and manages a portfolio of about $4 billion. Chris Sorce, a founding principal of what’s now HBKS Wealth Advisors, said the size of the portfolios he manages has changed. Sorce, who was joined by Brian Sommers, chief investment officer with HBKS Wealth Advisors, sat down…

Ford is rated one step above junk by Moody’s Investors Service and two steps by S&P Global Ratings. The automaker has more than $150 billion of short- and long-term debt globally, and is one of the 15 biggest corporate bond issuers in the U.S. outside the financial sector. Hedge funds turned in their worst monthly performance in nearly three years in the first part…

–Wells Fargo& Co. is considering a sale of its retirement-plan services business, according to people familiar with the matter. In February, the Federal Reserve banned Wells Fargo from growing assets past their December 2017 level until the bank rights its missteps. The retirement-plan services business is part of Wells Fargo’ s wealth and…

Asking someone you’ve never met to trust you with their finances can be a daunting conversation to face. To newcomers to the industry, the idea of building trust and confidence sounds like an uphill battle with a lot of rejection along the way. Here’s what veteran advisors had to offer about talking to perspective clients and making first steps with new clients.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’ s Investor Advisory Committee voted 16 to three Wednesday to recommend changes to the agency’ s Regulation Best Interest, including that the rule be a fiduciary standard. On a call with committee members on Wednesday, Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, laid out the four…

Advisors are typically cheering when the U.S. ushers in a divided government; the economy and stocks, after all, tend to do better in gridlock. “I believe that our political system is healthier when the two parties share power, so I am happy with the outcome,” said Debra Brennan Tagg, president of Brennan Financial Services in Dallas.“ I also believe that both parties…

At his law office in Orem, Utah, Doug Barrett has noticed something about his clients: They’re older than they used to be. Even as bankruptcy rates are declining in the general population, both in Utah and nationwide, new research shows they’re increasing for people 65 and older. This is a notable demographic shift, “wrote the authors of” Graying of U.S. Bankruptcy, “the…

Election results show the Senate will be Republican. The House will be Democratic. But, thanks to gridlock, Trump’s economic policies won’t go away.

Investment advisers say we are“ investing for the long run” and diversify among low-fee funds in various asset classes and indexes. Then they trot out studies showing investors will average 8% or whatever in the long run. And those are true statements.

For an increasing number of investors, investing isn’t just about selecting opportunities that do well in their portfolio. It’s about owning investments that also make a positive social impact. Sustainable investing is a growing niche of investment practices designed to help investors achieve both objectives.

It’s not supposed to be this way.

–Don’ t be so quick to believe the dirt you hear about brokers. That’ s the inescapable takeaway from research reported by Bloomberg News last week showing that false accusations of broker misconduct are disturbingly common. Researchers Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru reviewed brokers’ employment records dating from 2005 to 2015 for a study in the Journal…

To be sure, Merrill Lynch was an“ outlier” for not having a so-called holdback on the production credit used to calculate an advisors compensation, Andy Sieg, head of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, told reporters during a conference all about the changes Thursday evening. The move wasn’ t anything out of the ordinary, said Andy Tasnady, the managing partner of…

The program was launched as part of UBS Retirement Plan Guided Solutions, a separate offering from the firm’s existing Retirement Plan Consulting Services program that has roughly 150 UBS advisors trained as institutional consultants working with about 2,000 large retirement plans with an aggregate of $85 billion in plan assets. In the new Retirement…

Advisors wondering how to appeal to younger investors might want to consider financial planning, according to a study conducted by Northwestern Mutual. The report found younger professionals to be more engaged by financial planning than their older counterparts. “Millennials appear to understand more than any other generation the importance of creating…

Owners in transition should make a clean break to avoid confusion, says former Aspiriant CEO Tim Kochis.

With the economy strong, wages rising and unemployment at a near-five-decade low, the Federal Reserve remains on track to keep raising interest rates _ just not this week. After the Fed’s latest policy meeting, it’s expected to signal a healthy outlook for the economy but to hold off on any further credit tightening, most likely until December. A rate hike in December would mark the fourth this year.

The SEC’s complaint alleges that Douglas P. Simanski raised over $3.9 million from approximately 27 of his brokerage customers and investment advisory clients, many of them retired or elderly, by telling them that he would invest their money in either a “tax free” fixed rate investment, a rental car company, or one of two coal mining companies in which Simanski…

A lawsuit filed by an ex-client was granted class action status after the firm failed to keep the dispute out of court.

A focus on productivity has resulted in attrition of lower producing brokers, the firm says.

Advisors are often reluctant to ask for referrals and clients are uncomfortable giving them. How to break the deadlock.

Numerous surveys report that the No. 1 concern of retirees is that they will run out of money before they die. Yet compulsory required minimum distributions increase the risk of running out of money by compelling that money, wisely saved for retirement and its associated uncertainties, be distributed at a purely arbitrary time unrelated to the personal financial needs of the owner.

Vanguard Group CEO Tim Buckley has been tapped to become the next chairman of the $5.3 trillion investment manager. He will succeed Bill McNabb in January of 2019 and become only the fourth chairman in the firm’s history, the company said in a statement on Thursday. In 1991, when he joined Vanguard, Buckley was an assistant to then-CEO John Bogle.

After launching their firm, advisors look for ways to make their business sustainable so that it prospers after they retire.

FINRA announced today that it has fined LPL Financial, LLC $2.75 million for complaint-reporting and AML program failures that spanned a period of more than three years. FINRA found that LPL failed to file or amend registered representatives’ Forms U4 or U5 to disclose dozens of reportable customer complaints. Susan Schroeder, FINRA Executive Vice President,…

Investors applauded strong quarterly results from companies including Facebook and General Motors, but U.S. stocks still finished with their worst monthly loss in seven years. Many of the biggest gains Wednesday came from technology and internet companies and retailers, which plunged early in October as investors worried about rising interest rates and…

Women are a force to be reckoned with in the economy. They own 10 million businesses in the U.S., control an impressive $11.2 trillion in investable assets and are increasingly the primary breadwinner and financial decision makers in households. When comparing balance sheets, men have an average of $203,000 saved up compared to the $115,000 saved by women,…

US stocks change course again and turn higher following big gains in Europe. Technology and internet companies and retailers are climbing, and so are makers and sellers of consumer goods. Software maker Red Hat surged after IBM agreed to buy it. Despite the big gain, the S&P 500 index is down 7.6 percent in October.

Financial advisors based in small towns see advantages and disadvantages, but they tend to thrive as pillars of the community.

n August, Karen Karniol-Tambour warned that the U.S. stock market was priced for perfection, making it vulnerable to the sort of sell-off that took place in October. While convinced that in the long term investors need more exposure to Chinese markets, as of late October she wasn’ t bullish about China for the short term, either.“ It’ s a good time to be nervous about…

The 28th annual Schwab Impact 2018 conference kicked off in Washington, D.C., with Schwab’s head of advisor services, Bernie Clark, welcoming attendees.

For many of us, having too much money in a retirement plan sounds like a dream come true. But for those who have done a great job saving throughout their working career, living with more in retirement savings than you need may somehow feel like a burden. The QCD maximum is $100,000 per year and the distribution also qualifies for your RMD.

Stocks pared losses Friday, after the S&P 500 fell more than 10% off its high, and leading stocks sank into what would be considered a bear market.

That Was Scary The Nasdaq (NASDAQ:QQQ) had its third largest single day point drop in history yesterday below only April 4th and April 14th 2000. On the bright side, percentage wise, the fall wasn’t cataclysmic at only 4.43%. The record for a one day percentage fall is Black Monday 1987 when the Nasdaq fell 11%, […]
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A turbulent day on Wall Street ended Tuesday with stocks climbing nearly all the way out of a steep, broad sell-off that at one point erased more than 500 points from the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The latest selling came as investors grew unsettled over slowing economic growth in China and increased signs that President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade…

U.S. markets spent most of the day deep in the red on one of the busiest earnings sessions of the year as a global sell-off and disappointing reports by major industrial companies sent nervous investors out of stocks. 3 M and Caterpillar fell sharply in trading as the companies failed to project robust outlooks for the rest of 2018. Caterpillar warned dealers…

Because traditional marketing strategies can prove unappealing to some advisors, they find creative, painless approaches to build their brand.

The subscription model allows you to work with people who have the “potential” to grow into AUM clients. And it allows us to grow with our clients to help build their net worth and implement healthy financial habits early.