Recently added articles from Financial Planning:
Insurance Woes.(The Bond Buyer)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: -Jack Herman Insurance penetration in early September had fallen to new lows since Moody's Investors Service placed triple-A insurers Assured Guaranty Corp. and Financial Security Assurance Inc. on review for downgrade. About 6.2% of new issues came to the market insured ...
Comforting the Bereft; When a client or prospect is grieving the death of a loved one, how you come across can make the difference between alienation and lifelong loyalty.(The Client)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Amy Florian Maya Angelou wrote: "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." This is particularly true for financial planners who serve clients after the death of a loved one. More ...
Weathering the Storm; Many small business clients are in dire straits, but proactive planners can offer strategies to fortify them against the economic tempest.(The Client)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Jeanne Lee These days, mall business clients are suffering in two ways. After pouring blood, sweat and tears into their enterprises for decades, they're worrying about shrinking revenues and finding enough operating capital to survive this tough economic climate. ...
Natural Beauty; Clients who donate a conservation easement can collect a trifecta of tax benefits.(The Client)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Donald Jay Korn There are few triple plays in the tax code. Health savings accounts, for example, offer upfront deductions, tax-free investment earnings and tax-free withdrawals for medical care. A lesser-known member of this exclusive club is the conservation ...
Wealth Transfer; If your clients have inherited money recently, they're probably looking for new advisors.(Elite Advisor)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: John J. Bowen Jr. For many advisors, inheritors are an intriguing market. We all know that one of the best ways to garner new assets is to capitalize on those moments when money is in motion-during a divorce, for instance, or when a business is sold. And it's hard to ...
Into the Red; The market slump expands globally, and investors back home continue to short the market.(The Data)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Stacy Schultz With 710 ETFs holding $582 billion in assets in the market today, their imprint on the investment world is certain. Institutional and individual investors alike are increasingly using ETFs both for long-term holdings and as a substitute for single stocks. ...
Real Estate Developer; T. Rowe's David Lee seeks out real estate companies for the long term.(Fund Manager Profile)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Ilana Polyak With all the bad newssurrounding residential real estate and the mortgage market, you may have missed the news that commercial real estate is doing quite well. In fact, real estate mutual funds are the second best-performing fund category following ...
Leaving It To Beaver Leaving More To Beaver; A QPRT can greatly reduce estate taxes, but whether it's a good idea depends on the numbers.(Estate Planning)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Martin M. Shenkman Getting a client into a qualified personal residence trust (QPRT) to reduce estate-tax exposure in this down real estate market sounds like a no-brainer. Yet, like deciding to ask your doctor for the purple pill, recommending this trust to a client ...
Client Rules Apply; Tech advances in past year have made separately managed accounts far more flexible for clients.(High Net Worth)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Paul Oliu One of the criticisms of separately managed accounts (SMAs) has been that their management is not truly separate-that is, that they aren't sufficiently customized to meet individual client needs. Even with the technology available in recent years, ...
New Products.(Industry)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Editorial Staff PRACTICE TOOLS Professional Education Services launched a proprietary college-funding software that enables CPAs and CFPs to assist clients in making more informed decisions about paying for college based on "free money" they can expect to ...
RayJay's Day; As raymond james' independent advisors met in maryland, they celebrated a variety of triumphs.
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Marion Asnes As close to 1,000 advisors gathered in National Harbor, Md., for the Raymond James Financial Services national conference in late August, morale was high. The company topped the J.D. Powers rankings of full- service brokers, besting the competition, in ...
Spendaholics; Ed McMahon, the new poster child for retirement planning, is a client we know too well.(My Word)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Thomas C. Scott After the news broke recently that formerJohnny Carson sidekick Ed McMahon was being foreclosed out of his Beverly Hills mansion, he went on "Larry King Live" to say (with a straight face), "I just want to give [the millions of other people facing ...
Anticipating Needs; Serving a retired clientele, this firm offers something unusual: concierge medical services.(Profile)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Jim Grote While planners nationwide are mindful that their baby-boomer clientele will become elderly in the coming years, this future is now at Rutherford Asset Planning in Naples, Fla. Run by Suzette Rutherford, CFP and her husband Ron, this mom-and-pop shop offers a ...
Index Battle; Which cost less and are more tax efficient-index-based mutual funds or etfs?(The Portfolio)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Craig L. Israelsen and April Recksiek Investors who want to build an index-based portfolio have two viable mechanisms: index-based mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). By definition, an ETF is a portfolio based on an established index. The debate ...
Pumped Up; Are drilling fund investors cashing in on pricey petroleum or just buying at the top?(The Portfolio)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Donald Jay Korn The good news, at least from motorists' perspective, is that oil prices plunged nearly 25% in one month last summer (from July 11 to Aug. 12). The bad news, however, was not hard to find. Even at that "low" level, oil traded at more than $112 a barrel and ...
Reducing Retirement Risk; To address longevity, retirees may want to consider planning for a conservative portfolio early and a more aggressive one later.
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Richard K. Fullmer The year 2008 is shaping up to be a nasty year in which to retire.From their high on Oct. 9, 2007 to September 9, 2008, two of the three major Russell Indexes-the Russell 1000 and 3000-dropped to within a fraction, plus or minus, of negative 20%, which ...
Doing Due Diligence; The decision to buy a planning firm should rest, in part, on its regulatory past and its business future.(The Practice)(Company overview)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Ingrid Case Thirteen years ago, David Urovsky,now president of Rockville, Md.-based Wealth Advisors Group, owned one financial planning practice. He liked his work, with a few exceptions. "I did not enjoy the marketing and sales side of the business, but I thought I was ...
Morale Support; For firms to attract and retain the advisors needed to grow their client list, they must make the right investment in infrastructure to support them.(The Practice)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Gwen Moran Financial planners looking to add high-net-worth clients will be pleased to know that opportunities for doing so are growing. According to the 2008 World Wealth Report by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch, the global population of high-net-worth individuals is on ...
Speaking Persuasively; Effective speaking, whether in presentations or conversations, involves taking the audience on a trip from their problems to your solutions.(The Practice)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Nick Morgan In these tough economic times, communication with clients and prospects gets more difficult-and becomes more important than ever. Conversations can be fraught with emotions, resistance and suspicion. How do you set expectations, answer objections and overcome ...
On the Side; Although many planners who develop products probably should keep their day jobs, these ventures might benefit their practices.(The Practice)
Oct 01, 2008 ... Byline: Gwen Moran It was truly a Cinderella story. In 2000, Edmond Walters took the knowledge he had gained from years of working as a financial planner and developed a Conshohocken, Pa.-based online company called eMoney Advisor. Walters had taken a big gamble: ...