Best Of

Your investment strategy is critically important but the implementation requires wise fund selection.

Should we have a “Free Countries Asset Class” or a “Foreign Stock Asset Class?”

As with many financial decisions, our gut feelings deceive us on this matter.

The process of defining your sectors is an attempt to identify the quintessential features of your strategy and formalize your selection criteria.

It is good to take the two categories which are most similar and use them as underlying sector divisions within the same larger asset class.

The value of not running out of money when making withdrawals cannot be measured.

Portfolio design and rebalancing is both a science and an art. Knowing that rebalancing boosts returns is useless unless you as the investor follow through.

Rebalancing can both boost returns and lower volatility, but most investors do not understanding how.

A computer algorithm cannot help you with these things.

Most investors are not aware of an important separation in the professionals of the financial services industry.

The new holiday cliché is to complain about hyper-materialism, but gifts and gift giving help shape our identities.

It is a simple thought experiment. Would you rather invest in South Korea or in North Korea?

There is no accounting for how many heirs an account might need to be divided among in an estate plan. Here are the best practices for how to divide the estate.

There are five ways that both you and the government could make charitable giving more significant.

“When institutions protect the liberty of individuals, greater prosperity results for all.” – Adam Smith

Someone has to be proactive about your child’s retirement and every year you don’t open a retirement account is another year you’re holding back compound interest.

Any money you put away and invest now will have the longest time to grow, due to the magic (or actually, the mathematics) of compound interest.

The capital gains tax traps wealth in an investment vehicle requiring special techniques to free the capital without penalty.

Despite their complexity, these exchanges have the potential to save vast amounts of money.

Our firm decided to become a 3(38) investment manager because playing this role offers our clients administrative relief. By taking on the role of a 3(38) adviser, we accept responsibility for selecting a prudent investment strategy.

With as little as $25 you can begin loaning money to developing world entrepreneurs.

The president’s hope to restrict the plans should actually make owners more interested in creating one.

Trying to wait until market conditions are perfect likely means you will miss a good investing opportunity.

Before a grandmother passes away, both her sons predecease her. Left with only her daughter and grandchildren, depending on her titling one of three things may happen.

Retirement Planning is perhaps the single most important goal of comprehensive wealth management.

The complete guide to saving money while washing your clothes. What temperature should the water be? What cycle should I use? What detergent should I use?

Five principles from analyzing the last decade of returns.

As the wife of a 2013 college graduate and a 2012 college graduate myself, I can boldly say this was the most helpful advice given to me.

The optimum asset allocation to physical gold and silver is 0%. Instead, we recommend you use resource stocks as an inflation hedge.

A dollar saved on taxes is worth more than a dollar earned. If you earn another dollar, they will just tax you again.

Lord Grantham, the master of Downton Abbey, continues to offer insightful financial lessons as he bumbles his wealth management responsibilities.

As a financial advisor, season 3 of Downton Abbey has become the most interesting as deep-level financial tension has begun to infiltrate the Crawley family drama.

It’s not just Mister Spock who is living a long life. Japanese Jiroemon Kimura’s nearly 116 years, making him the oldest man in modern recorded history, is a reminder to have a retirement income plan that will last over the long haul.

This kitten knows what she’s worth. Be more like this kitten.

The victors in the recent election have declared it open hunting season on the rich, which they evidently believe will solve our spending problems. Tax hikes everywhere are aimed at the most productive members of society.

“Unless we begin to close this gap, then the inevitable result will be that our debt/GDP ratio will continue to rise, the Fed would print money to pay for the deficiency, inflation would follow, and the dollar would inevitably decline.”

Parents take note: Research on delayed gratification shows connections from children through adulthood.

No matter your age, in addition to a will, you need two additional documents.

The worst thing you can do is to do nothing at all and assume everything will pan out in the end. No matter how much (or how little) money you have, you need at least a simple will.

Measuring progress regularly on the path toward retirement is critical. Fall too far behind, and you risk not being able to save enough to catch up. There is no downside to arriving early.

Knowing how much you should save for retirement is critical. But what if you are late getting started? The longer you delay, the shorter the time that compound interest can do its magic on your savings.

Studies show that onetime windfalls can actually impoverish you. They make you feel rich, which inevitably leads to overspending. But wealth is what you save, not what you spend.

Most Americans assume a progressive tax code is needed to promote equality and remove some of the burden of other taxes on those with the lowest income. But the progressive nature of the tax code changes behavior in many ways.

You should save 15% of your take-home pay for retirement over your working career. As your situation varies, you must adjust your safe savings rate.

“Anyone who’s bought gas, paid a medical bill or sent a child off to college recently knows that the Consumer Price Index doesn’t tell the whole story of inflation.”

Many families seek financial planning advice specifically for retirement. But if they wait too long, they miss an important tax-planning opportunity. A great strategy is to take advantage of the time between retirement and Social Security at age 70, the so-called gap years.

Franco Modigliani won the Nobel Prize for a simple technique that squirrels know intuitively from birth. You have to squirrel away some nuts during times of plenty so you can survive during times of scarcity.

Studies suggest that brains may be wired with either a utopian or a tragic view of the world, corresponding roughly to liberals and conservatives. We continue to talk past each other in political debates.

Advisors who offer comprehensive wealth management are like financial concierges. Their only goal is to meet your needs. If you ask for fresh strawberries, they try to find them for you.

It can be useful to maintain a grid where all of the available asset classes are arranged in order, by tax efficiency and potential return based on time horizon, so clients can clearly see when and where tax-deferral can offer the greatest benefits.