The time to create workplace strategies that enable wealth management firms to attract and retain top talent is now. The question for many managers is just how to accomplish this....

Last year’s market wreckage doubtlessly left most investor portfolios well short of 2008 return targets and many long-term investment plans way behind schedule. ...

In other words, a firm that is totally financed with equity (i.e., an unleveraged firm) is worth exactly the same as an identical company financed through debt. ...

As of early March 2009, bonds had outperformed stocks over the last 30 years, earning a total return of 9.4% versus 8.8% annually for stocks....

U.S.-based exchange-traded funds attracted roughly $180 billion in net inflows last year. ...

Some financial advisors have long overweighted small value funds, heeding research by Eugene Fama of the University of ChicagoAllianz NFJ Small Cap Value and Kenneth French of Dartmouth....

Robert L. Rodriguez was early to recognize problems in the credit markets, having gone to a “plain vanilla” stance years before the financial tsunami hit....

The family business model is proving to be robust, even during the current economy. Family businesses have leadership values and particular characteristics that may serve them well in surviving the downturn. ...

When the FDIC takes over a failing bank, it winds up selling off its assets. The federal agency now may be involved in an asset sale of a different kind—taking toxic assets from troubled, but too-big-to-fail banks and placing them into a “bad bank.” ...

The difficult decisions forced on us by the market and the emotional drain of seeing the devastating effect on clients is causing many advisors to consider quitting. ...

Portfolio diversification, by combining low-volatility fixed income with higher-risk/higher-return asset classes, provides superior risk-adjusted returns across market cycles. ...

Amidst all the partisan squabbling over President Obama’s economic stimulus package and the role of tax cuts therein, there was, at least, bi-partisan agreement on the need to address the Alternative Minimum Tax. But AMT reform now seems DOA....

Wealth managers—the overwhelming majority of whom are male—still have much to learn about catering to the modern woman of means. ...

The virtues of diversification continue to be showcased by the volatile markets....

Today’s philanthropy is not your father’s philanthropy. Just as modern entrepreneurs and wealthy individuals no longer wait for retirement to enjoy the fruits of their labor, neither are they content to create posthumous legacies...

At the end of his most recent quarterly review, a client was leaving my office....