Investors are happy to think about retiring but are reluctant to contemplate what comes next. Such are the separate findings from surveys from AXA Financial and PNC Advisors. The AXA study showed that Americans are more confident about their...

Business people of a certain age probably can remember a plaque that secretaries everywhere once displayed with pride: Poor planning on your part does not constitute an automatic emergency on my part. It's a saying financial advisors should...

Making a profit in smaller qualified retirement plans has been difficult for advisors because of high costs. However, it's gotten easier in the past couple years, thanks to the emergence of shares, or retirement shares. Advisors using A shares...

The year 2004 saw developments in retirement benefits ranging from new final, minimum distribution regulations for defined benefit plans to a crackdown on abusive Roth IRAs. Many of the highlights have been addressed in Trusts & Estates during the...

He knew it wasn't going to be easy: A few years ago, William Bourke took a deep breath, looked his new client in the eye, and asked about succession plans for the small manufacturing business the man had started 20 years before. The owner waved...

If you think too many baby boomers are blissfully ignorant of their own financial future, just turn your attention to Washington, D.C. Peter G. Peterson, author of Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform America and the World and Running...

Investor misfortune is a good thing at least for financial advisors trolling for new clients. The industry now sits on the cusp of perhaps the best illustration of that statement, as the mythical $41 trillion wealth transfer to baby boomers from...

Ric Edelman, who runs Fairfax, Va.-based financial advisory firm Edelman Financial Services, received a call a while ago from a prospective client, who wanted to set up an appointment to talk about planning for his retirement. Fine, Edelman said...

Q: Like many brokers, I switched firms three years ago, joining a wirehouse offering a seven-year forgivable loan as upfront payment. Since hiring on at the new firm, my production has nosedived. I may be fired or, because I'm so frustrated, leave...

The phrase helping people quit dredges up all manner of images, most of them having to do with substance-abuse therapy. For many advisors that's apt, because the process of easing a client into retirement can feel like an intervention at times...