On April 30, 1990, the Securities and Exchange Commission implemented Rule 144A, which it viewed as the first step toward achieving a more liquid and efficient institutional resale market for unregistered securities.1 The rule enabled less-than...

Saving for college is simple if a financial advisor is possessed of a Kreskin-like ability to predict the future of the tax code, financial aid programs and investment returns while also correctly anticipating if, when and where a client's...

Tending to the financial needs of a family-owned small business is a complex affair, but it's not nearly as unique a task as it might seem at first blush. To be sure, the owners of these businesses have a number of concerns that set them apart...

Rollovers inspire yawns in most advisors and not just because the word reminds them of their mattresses. Over the years, the subject of rollovers has been overexposed. But there is good reason for that: They are an incredibly important segment of...

Initial public offerings are lessons in onomatopoeia for a company's founders: goes the stock immediately after the offering; Hee Hee! go the founders when they start counting their money. All too often, though, these sounds are followed by a as...

A few years ago, two longtime clients, both owners of their own businesses, announced they were splitting up. But each wanted to retain Koprowski, director of financial planning at Delessert Financial Services in Waltham, Mass., as financial...

It's not news that mixing family and business can be messy, but advisors might be surprised to know the extent to which family-owned businesses need their services. According to Boston-based Family Firm Institute, a nonprofit trade group for...

When investors, particularly wealthy ones, approach retirement, they often embark on a process that sends financial advisors' salivary glands into overdrive: the sale of highly appreciated assets. An advisor with such a client knows a big payday...

By 2020, approximately one out of six Americans will be 65 or older, according to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance, Westlake Village, Calif. Statistics show that roughly one-third of those men and one-half of those women will...

For Susan Hirshman, it was one of those unfortunate intersections where family dynamics and financial planning meet. About six years ago, a recently widowed client asked her son to step in and help handle her portfolio. But, when the son suggested...