Divorce

Bob Huebscher’s mother passed away on December 23, 2021.

Are we living in 1858 or 1968?

That is, are America’s divisions so profound and political institutions so crippled that we are poised for a breakdown akin to the Civil War? Or is the current polarization the product of conflicting social forces that can be gradually reconciled or redirected into more healthy electoral competition?

President Joe Biden extended the pause on federal student-loan repayments by another three months as the U.S. faces a fresh wave of Covid-19 cases from the omicron variant, removing a near-term threat to millions of Americans’ finances.

Capitalism’s death warrant was signed on March 19, 1968. That is when President Lyndon Johnson eliminated the requirement that the Federal Reserve back the U.S. dollar with gold reserves.

It has been my tradition to informally rate the investment-related books I read in the past year. I have also included some novels and books of general interest. Here is my list of winners and losers.

I’ve seen a lot of celebrity and CEO couples who have been married for a long time go through a divorce. The usual norm is that marital assets are subject to division. But where do financial investments fit into this equation?

Advisors breach their fiduciary duty when they fail to recommend guaranteed income products.

As you near the end of Q4 and gather your thoughts, goals, and priorities for 2022, we have one piece of advice: Streamline your business!

We mix up logic with emotion, data with information, and information with wisdom. Steven Pinker’s new book, Rationality, is a step-by-step guide to unmixing these and using hard-headed logic to arrive at useful conclusions.

How can advisors help clients who lack sufficient savings for retirement – those who accept the need to take on risk to achieve capital growth, but insist on a minimum income to fund essential expenses?

The popular yet embattled statue known as “Fearless Girl” might have to find a new home again, while its creator also contemplates making nonfungible tokens of the Wall Street icon.

The justification for the 4% rule was based upon historical investment performance from 1925 to 1995. But what is the value of relying on those results when today’s economy is so different?

Depending upon the decisions advisors make in the near term, their practices will either be setup for monumental growth or inevitable decline.

Is there a gender-based promotion gap? Are there too many women who do well on the job, but are not considered seriously for career advancement?

We’re all salespeople in some sense, fiduciary financial advisors included.

The message from two new pieces of proposed Social Security legislation is clear: We have passed the point where we can expand benefits.

Women in the U.S. have been among those hardest hit economically by the Covid-19 pandemic, knocked out of the workforce by the double whammy of a child care crisis and the pandemic recession.

The majority of the wealth in the U.S. is controlled by baby boomers. However, two rising trends in this dominant demographic are creating complications, not only for boomers and their advisors, but also for the children of boomers who constitute an increasingly vital current and future client group.

I explored the first four of 12 lasting effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy and financial markets in my previous column. Here are four more: greater use of telecommunications, a shift in preferred residences, more employee independence and an increased emphasis on online shopping.

This is the time when you are preparing an end-of-year/holiday letter for your clients. Unfortunately, fewer than 1% of them are going to derive any meaning from it. Use this template to create a holiday letter with some pizzazz.

The economy is at maximum employment. Inflation is running red hot and increasingly showing signs it is persistent. Having neglected one mandate and largely fulfilled the other, why is the Fed so slow to reduce asset purchases and unwilling to contemplate hiking interest rates?

The trading desk was just embarking on a second banner year when senior executives started defecting to the likes of Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Millennium Management. By this fall, many of the team’s heaviest hitters had gone.

The employment-to-population ratio of Americans ages 25 through 54, the most straightforward measure of the health of the job market, has now clawed back about 80% of its pandemic losses.

Gender-based stereotypes have an insidious impact on how women advisors are perceived, their ability to attract clients, and their career path in corporate environments. I blame it on John Gray.

This summer, when Fame Lady Squad launched, claiming to be the first ever female-led crypto art collective, it quickly raised $1.5 million from people who wanted to support underrepresented artists.

Americans are racking up bills on credit cards, returning to pre-pandemic habits after emergency relief programs ended and the economy reopened.

Here are nine things every female solo advisor should know about launching and growing a wealth management practice.

The unprecedented exodus of women from the workplace during the pandemic is empowering those who remain, helping spur a resurgence in labor organizing as industries such as health care, education and retail confront an acute shortage of jobseekers.

Here is my interview with Eric Negron, an advisor, about how he uses the Asset-Map software.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took paternity leave and, while he nested, the critics feasted.

If you are responsible for bringing in prospective clients, closing those prospects and servicing clients, you’re in sales.

A year-and-a-half into a pandemic, leaders are gathering at the two-day Bloomberg Equality Summit to take stock of the damage to the global economy and chart a way forward toward greater equality for all.

The brief-but-sharp 2020 recession and its aftermath are already shaping up a lot differently for college enrollment. Census Bureau data released last week, included in the above chart, shows a modest 0.7-percentage-point overall enrollment decline from the previous year as of October 2020 — albeit with an interesting divergence between men (down 1.5 points) and women (down 0.2).

Let’s look ahead at where we should be going as we finish out yet another year of unprecedented events.

To show how exclusive you are, there’s nothing like turning away a billionaire. Two members of the three comma club were among those nominated to join R360, a new, invitation-only investment and networking group for people with net worth of $100 million or more.

It’s being called the Great Resignation. Quits are at their highest rate in 20 years and no one seems to understand why. One thing is for sure: the labor market has gone weird.

We have been ranked as the most-read electronic newsletter among financial advisors for the third year in a row by Erdos & Morgan.

New research shows that funds with a good track record of social responsibility have attracted more assets. But that is a historical effect; additional fund flows do not lead to further improvements in social responsibility.

Leaving an established firm to go out on your own might solve some of your problems, but they will be replaced by a new host of obstacles and challenges.

Following the social unrest of 2020, the conversation around the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in the workplace has become more prominent than ever.

In part two of this series, I review three additional robos: Albert, Ellevest, and Stash.

In case there was any uncertainty about the moral hazard created by the Federal Reserve’s decision to buy junk-bond exchange-traded funds, a group of former senior leaders at BlackRock Inc., JPMorgan Asset Management and HSBC is leaving no room for doubt.

At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, former Facebook Inc. product manager Frances Haugen didn’t need to convince lawmakers that the company has a big problem.

If you’re going to write boring things, at least use more exciting letters. Here are some tips for using the letter “X” if you are xenacious enough to relax and give your marketing some flex.

The analytic framework for providing retirement income planning advice must use marginal tax rates and not tax brackets.

I have found great success in providing a fun, energetic learning environment to meet the needs and diverse goals of each office and advisor I encounter through deep consideration of the following three things: diverse learning styles, varying experience levels, and the importance of repetition.

Dirty work, by its very nature, is simultaneously everywhere and, by design, invisible, from our dinner plates to our cell phones. The more aware of it we are, the better chance we have of preserving our way of life, and likely, in the end, our portfolios as well.

A client engaged us about three months ago. But based on the time we’ve worked together, I do not enjoy or like him.

Having counseled numerous clients through the retirement process, I realized there was a missing piece – purpose! To be happy, retirees need something meaningful to wake up for every day. Here are some resources – paid and unpaid – to let them do that.

To understand how generational gaps impact your marketing strategy, we’re diving into the digital media that can be used to connect with prospects in different age groups.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s new book, Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, is addressed to what he believes are the evils of corporate America adopting a ”woke” posture and taking it upon itself to enforce woke-ness.

I’m all for showing generosity with prospects – until it crosses the line. Be on your guard for the five things prospects do and avoid getting played like Nintendo.

The next time you apply for a job, how would you feel if the person doing the interview asked to see your Uber rating?

When American Campus Communities Inc. announced the signing of a $1 billion sustainability-linked credit line in May, its executives decided to take a victory lap.

Companies that have gone public in the last two decades have had few minorities on their boards, a new report finds.

Creating a special advisory board will foster a better understanding of the questions facing seniors as they plan for retirement.

Unless your planning contemplates the negative physical and mental health ramifications of widowhood, which include “psychological distress, physician visits and institutionalization, and higher rates of morbidity and mortality,” it’s not comprehensive.