Features
Although families and single-family offices certainly need to be aware of their risks—and how to mitigate them—the firm-wide risks of multi-family offices may be even more complex. In some ways risks ...
Global equity markets lurch in waves of volatility. Banks are loathe to lend, withholding the lubricant that makes economies function. At the epicenter of the storm, an arcane concept known as “fair v...
In an interview on November 21, legendary investor Jeremy Grantham, chairman and co-founder of GMO, declared that, “It’s a nicely cheap market, but bear in mind that it can be spectacularly cheap if i...
Along with that openness is increased government intervention. It has been said on numerous occasions that Obama will usher in the next “New Deal” era—reminiscent of Roosevelt in the early 1930s. With...
Depending on your political preferences, you may be depressed or delighted with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. While the actual impact of any president’s poli...
“Exploratory meetings” are underway between the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Financial Planning Association and National Association of Personal Financial Advisors to establish “app...
Warren Buffett says that “it’s only when the tide goes out that you get to see who has been swimming with their trunks off.” Well, the high tide that kept many asset classes afloat has disappeared, an...
What do we know about wealthy individuals and their charitable inclinations? Quite a bit, actually, and perhaps far more than is generally recognized. But much of the knowledge base on the intersectio...
With credit markets in disarray, intermediate-term bond funds have slumped. During the first 10 months of 2008, the funds lost 8.4%—a particularly disappointing performance because intermediate funds ...
Reputation counts for much in money management—nowhere more so than in the hedge fund industry. Everyone understands this, although exactly how reputation influences investing strategies beyond the an...
The current state of the financial markets has forced high-net-worth clients and their advisors to scrutinize their wealth protection strategies. As a result, many advisors have rediscovered life insu...
As the economic turmoil of the third quarter continued into the fourth, the domestic equity markets produced one of the worst 12‑month periods in decades. Slowing global growth, falling commodity pric...
As we close the books on a tumultuous year, it’s hard to predict what lies ahead. A new president, changing economic conditions, major industry evolution—the list goes on. It’s safe to say, however, t...
True learning only comes through pain, Aristotle observed. If that’s the case, investors endured one heck of an education last year. The source of their illumination was the financial crisis of 2008, ...
The vintage scales displayed in the conference room of Focus Financial Partners’ midtown Manhattan offices are not the only collection CEO Rudy Adolf has his eye on. While he is unabashedly pleased wi...
Every year natural disasters like hurricanes strike repeatedly, affecting tens of thousands of Americans. Fortunately, individuals whose homes, household goods and other properties are damaged or dest...
There are times when—even for the highest-net-worth clients—wealth transfer becomes secondary to the issue of wealth preservation. Clearly, this is one of those times! The failure of Lehman Brothers, ...
As much energy and empathy as we are all spending on our clients, we may be overlooking another group of stakeholders whose portfolios have been damaged even more during this market crisis—our employe...