It’s common knowledge that investing in mutual funds, index funds, or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) can help build a diversified portfolio. These funds hold diverse baskets of securities, including stocks, bonds and other assets from real estate to derivatives. By investing your money in a variety of...
Family trusts are an important tool for managing wealth across multiple generations. They can help you avoid the time-consuming and costly process of probate, keep your assets private, minimize taxes, and ensure that your wealth is distributed according to your wishes.
Family trusts tend to be...
Lately, financial pundits seem to be constantly warning that a bear market is coming, arguing over whether one has begun or predicting when one will end. It’s less common for them to actually define one. From their ominous tone, you can tell it’s less appealing than its counterpart, a bull market...
As tax planning season and end-of-year charitable giving begin, it’s a good time to consider the benefits of donor-advised funds. Charitable giving has many facets, most notably as an opportunity for you to support the causes and organizations that reflect your values. But giving is also a...
The charitable remainder trust (CRT) is a popular retirement- and estate-planning tool. It can be a convenient way to create a stream of lifetime income for yourself and others or donate to a charity while minimizing and deferring taxes. But there are many choices to make when establishing a CRT and...
If you’re a parent, the start of a new school year may have you considering how much you’re able to set aside for your child’s college fund.
Average annual tuition in the U.S. is $38,185 for private college and $10,338 for public college.[1]1 And those numbers may rise by 2%–3% in the coming...
Bonds play an important role in a diverse investment portfolio. As fixed-income securities, they can provide a stable return until they mature.
As with any investment, bonds are subject to a certain amount of risk. Interest rate risk, for one, is the possibility that interest rates will rise...
Markets go up and down in ways that are not entirely predictable. For long-term investors, what the market is doing in the present isn’t that troubling; they’ve got a long time to ride out potential downturns. But for recent retirees, an ill-timed market downturn can have a negative impact on their...
Talking with loved ones about estate planning and inheritance can be challenging, especially as it centers around two taboo topics — money and death. But talking with your adult children about their inheritance can provide significant advantages for you and them. It can help your heirs better...
Sometimes stock prices drop across the entire market at once triggered by a range of things, such as a natural disaster, political turmoil, concerns over rising interest rates, a global health crisis, or problems within a single sector that cause a domino effect across the market.
A decline in...
A concentrated position in a single stock can happen to investors for many reasons. They may receive company stock as part of their employee compensation package or they may have bought shares of a single company, hoping to choose a big winner.
However, it’s unlikely that a single stock will...
Retirement planning requires forethought, discipline, and the juggling of many moving parts. Staying on track to meet financial goals can be tricky for anyone, but it can be especially hard for women, who face a number of financial headwinds.
Women face unique challenges when it comes to...