Innovation is a constant in the world of investing. New spins on old ideas are forever being dreamt up by product departments most of them are meant to make lots of money for the people who sell them and the investors who buy them. Not all of them...

Raymond James Financial announced this morning that it has closed the deal to purchase regional firm Morgan Keegan from Regions Financial Corp. for $1.2 billion in cash. The combined firm will have 6,500 advisors and $372 billion in total client...

Niches are beautiful As markets change and the financial advisory industry demands new services, advisor teams that have the right skills and are paying attention can position themselves as the next go-to practice. There's this push for...

In Part 1 of this article, published in the December 2011 issue of Trusts & Estates, I examined a lawyer's duty of care to trust beneficiaries and the current product considerations facing policyholders and carriers. Now, I turn my...

Self-canceling installment notes (SCINs) are often discussed, but rarely used by our clients, until now. A SCIN involves the sale of an asset (for example, a business interest or stock), typically to the seller's family members, in exchange...

In a January 2010 Trusts & Estates article entitled The Estate Planner's Guide to Product Suitability,1 I suggested that it's imperative to have a process for determining the characteristics of a life insurance policy that's well...