If you provide estate-planning services to wealthy aging clients, there’s one detail you might not want to overlook—because many of your clients probably have. Although most wealthy Americans plan to leave their money to their children...

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A good salesman doesn’t always make a good financial advisor. And some clients are finding that out the hard way. A survey published by The Paladin Registry, a for-profit company that offers consumers free access to a Web-based database of...

Everybody knows that time management is key in running a business. But managing your time may be even more important to an RIA’s profitability than you may have appreciated before, according to a recent report from Moss Adams and Schwab...

Sure, most financial advisors and wealth managers have heard of retirement income planning by now. And they know they’ve got to provide it if they want to hold onto, or win more, baby boomer clients. But that doesn’t mean they’re...

Remember the bear market? Remember how ugly that was, in 2002 and 2003, when the securities industry was lopping off employees and in a general state of defense? We can’t either. The post-bubble good times just keep on getting better. The...

The final split-dollar regulations that were effective as of Sept. 17, 2003 (T.D. 9092) became the operative guidance for arrangements that either were implemented after this date or that existed before Sept. 17, 2003 but were materially modified...

A lot of advisors, even the most reputable, groan when the word is uttered. Let's talk ethics, is like being told, Let's eat steamed broccoli. Sure, it's good for you, but yech. Well, if you want spice, look at the headlines. There have been lots...

True story: a decedent's trust had been named beneficiary of an individual retirement account (IRA.) While the trust beneficiaries were busy arguing over who was going to get what piece of the trust, the trustee, who was the decedent's surviving...