By Adri Miller-Heckman for IRIS.xyz. Gender balanced teams are on the rise, the industry is desperate to add women to their firms and teams in order to attract and retain more women.. But without proper training, this diverse structure will have limited benefits.

Will there be a Recession in the US soon? This question has been pondered and debated by many. Last December, the curve between US three-year and five-year Treasury notes and that between two-year and five-year notes inverted.

As the 2018 income tax filing season heads down its final stretch, many Americans are finding themselves with surprise tax bills. One area that can lead to unwanted surprises come tax season is required minimum distributions.

Many seniors are worried about running out of money in retirement. Annuities are one option to prevent that from happening.

Robert Colby, chief legal officer at FINRA, said the self-regulatory organization was paying close attention to the rulemaking, and would wait to see what role, if any, FINRA will have in its enforcement.“ We saw referred to FINRA 472 times, but who’ s counting? Taking on the theme of operation efficiency in regulation, Merri Jo Gillette, the deputy general councel of…

Melissa Acayan, compliance counsel for senior and at-risk clients for Raymond James& Associates in Tampa, receives cases every day where a financial adviser suspected an older client was being taken advantage of by a family member or caretaker. In Florida alone, 127 cases escalated to her group last year. “We see the most horrific abuses every day,” Acayan recently…

Shares are sharply lower in Asia after a broad retreat on Wall Street on Friday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock index tumbled 3.2 percent while the Shanghai Composite declined 1.1 percent. Growth concerns were revived by weak factory data from Europe. Investors are watching for signs of progress ahead of China-U.S. trade talks that are due to resume Thursday in Beijing.

Just a few months ago, rising rates were bearing down on everyone from homebuyers to stock investors after the Federal Reserve put through seven quarter-point increases in 2017 and 2018.. The move- or anticipated lack of moves- reverberated immediately through the bond market, and the yield on the 10- year Treasury note tumbled to its lowest level in more than a…

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards issued the following news release:. -The benefits of an HSA extend beyond your current healthcare needs, says CFP Board Ambassador Dan Mathews, CFP (R). A health savings account can supplement health insurance and better serve consumers in long-run, says CFP Board Ambassador Dan Mathews, CFP (R).

WASHINGTON— The Federal Reserve left its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday and projected no rate hikes this year, reflecting a dimmer view of the economy as growth weakens in the United States and abroad. The Fed said it was keeping its benchmark rate— which can influence everything from mortgages to credit cards to home equity lines of credit— in a range of…

“How does a reputable financial advisor combat the current perception and differentiate themselves?” and “What are the most important messages for these types of businesses to communicate now?”

U.S. stock indexes closed mostly lower on Tuesday after a late-afternoon splash of selling erased early gains, ending a weeklong rally. Banks accounted for much of the decline, along with utilities and industrial companies. Investors were looking ahead to what the Federal Reserve would say today following a two-day meeting of policymakers.

The Federal Reserve is considered sure to leave its key short-term interest rate unchanged and to stress its new watchword _ “patient”_ in conveying its intention to leave rates alone for the foreseeable future. Besides issuing a policy statement, the Fed will also update its forecasts for the economy and interest rates, and Chairman Jerome Powell will hold a news conference. Analysts will be looking for any new hints of how the Fed intends to manage its rate policies in coming months.

Recently I talked about how the last 11 years have been no better than cumulative GDP during the Great Depression. I’ ll talk more about that later this week. Total debt peaked at $58.4 trillion, or four times GDP, in the first quarter of 2009 and just barely deleveraged in the financial and consumer sectors during the Great Recession.

The message the Federal Reserve is poised to send when its latest policy meeting ends this week is a soothing one. It reflects an abrupt shift in tone since the start of the year in the face of a slowdown in the United States and abroad, persistently tame inflation and a nervous stock market. The Fed is instead set this week to keep its key short-term rate in a range of…

March 19– Mar. 19– Fred Berney spends his nights in his basement, surrounded by video editing equipment. The 79- year-old Walkersville resident owns his own video business, where he edits video photo slideshows or will edit videos. At one point, the company had a contract with Booz Allen to translate textbooks into videos.

Amanda Hill, 27, deals with big student loan debt by doing everything she can to keep her other bills small.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation Best Interest is well-meaning but doesn’t go far enough, the Chair of Certified Financial Planner Board of Standard’s Board of Directors testified today before a Congressional subcommittee. “While we appreciate the opportunity the rule proposals represent, our concern is that they offer the…

Examining the SEC’s Best Interest Rule: “. And in the House bill, we did subject brokers to the same exact fiduciary duty that investment advisers are already subject to– we said that the SEC shall write rules ensuring that brokers who advise retail investors are subject to a legal standard that’ shall be the same as the standard of conduct applicable to an…

The House Financial Services subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship and Capital Markets issued the following testimony by Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America, at a hearing entitled “Putting Investors First? I am Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of…

Maryland consumers will have less access to professional financial advice, insurance products and investment products under proposed legislation that imposes sweeping, ill-defined burdens on financial advisors, according to the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI), a leading trade association for the retirement income industry.

US stocks move broadly higher, powered by technology and health care stocks. The higher opening puts the market on course for its third straight day of gains as it continues to rebound from its worst week since December. Nvidia and CVS rose. Rite Aid surged on plans to shake up management and trim jobs.

If you feel dread when you think about retirement instead of gleeful anticipation, it could be because you don’t know exactly what your goal is. Here’s how to help target a savings amount and how to get there.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance issued the following news release:. New research from the Nationwide Retirement Institute finds the majority of business owners consider the cost of healthcare to be the biggest expense for those in retirement, outpacing housing, taxes, food and transportation. “Business owners want to talk about employee benefit solutions that…

A broad rally led by technology companies drove U.S. stocks sharply higher Monday, giving the S&P 500 its biggest increase since late January. A sharp decline in Boeing stemmed the gain for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Investors drew encouragement from a report showing a slight increase in U.S. retail sales for January after a steep decline in December, and…

If you talk to any competent eldercare professional, they will stress that pre-planning is the key to making good choices when it comes to long term care. Unfortunately, what generally happens is that family members wait until a crisis occurs, and then, naturally fast actions leads to hasty, poorly planned decision making. Ken Dychtwald Ph.D., an accomplished…

Bulls dominated the stock market today as the key indexes found support at their 200-day lines. Soaring chip and software stocks boosted the Nasdaq.

Another wave of selling on Wall Street Friday left the S&P 500 with its worst weekly showing since January and its eighth loss in the last nine days. The sell-off, which lost some strength toward the end of the day, followed a surprisingly weak jobs report and more signs that the global economy is hitting the brakes. The U.S. jobs report is the latest batch of…

After Microsoft, there’ s Apple, Amazon, and Google’ s parent company Alphabet. Today, the iPhone accounts for most of Apple’ s revenue, helping Apple to become the first publicly traded company worth more than $1 trillion last year. Both now trade well below that level, and jockey with Microsoft for the most-valuable U.S. company title with valuations of around $800…

Total household net worth in the fourth quarter of 2018 dropped by the largest amount since the fourth quarter of 2008 when the country was in the midst of a steep recession, according to data released last week by the Federal Reserve. In the fourth quarter of 2018, it fell by about $3.7 trillion, a 3.5 percent quarterly decline. More importantly, most of the…

As the bull market for U.S. stocks celebrates its 10th birthday, joining the party has never been cheaper or easier. Investors can buy or sell stocks on their phone with the flick of a thumb, and for a much lower cost. And they also have more choices after the industry introduced thousands of funds to cover everything from the broadest swaths to the smallest niches of the market. That said, investing in the market is still risky.

Broad losses in Shanghai and Hong Kong are leading Asian markets lower, after China reported its exports plunged more than 20 percent in February. Selling Friday also was fueled by worries that the U.S. and China may not be as close to a trade deal as President Donald Trump has suggested. The Shanghai Composite index sank 4.4 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng retreated 1.7 percent, while Japan’s benchmark gave up more than 2 percent.

Stocks are opening lower on Wall Street, putting the market on track for its fourth loss in a row and its first losing week since January. Banks and technology companies had some of the biggest losses in early trading. Kroger slumped after the supermarket operator reported earnings that fell short of Wall Street’s forecasts. European markets narrowed their losses after the European Central Bank pushed back the earliest date of interest rate increases and announced more cheap loans for banks.

The Federal Reserve says the U.S. economy was expanding in January and February, but half the country was seeing fallout from the 35-day partial government shutdown. Some manufacturers expressed worries about weakening global demand for their products and adverse effects from President Donald Trump’s trade policies.

Hence was born, on March 9, 2009, one of the strongest bull markets ever. People who exited the stock market around March 2009 and never re-entered paid a huge price in terms of missed opportunities. Stocks began their rally against a bleak economic backdrop back in March 2009.