Sophia Bera, CEO and founder of Gen Y Planning. When financial advisor Sophia Bera founded her Austin, Texas-based practice in 2013, she decided to work primarily with millennial clients. Bera, then 29, wanted to help her peers navigate their early careers and the thorny financial issues, such as managing student debt and buying a first
Advisors
Thomas Barwick The group that oversees certified financial planners is making it tougher for consumers looking for a new advisor to find out how a particular CFP gets paid. The CFP Board of Standards — a nonprofit that governs the CFP designation, held by 86,000 financial advisors in the U.S. — erased a part of its
eclipse_images | E+ | Getty Images If you can’t beat the crypto crowd, it might be time to join them, experts say. Virtual currency and its underlying technology, blockchain, are here to stay – and that means both will play some role in investors’ lives. “It’s actually very hard to decouple blockchain and bitcoin,” said
Ariel Skelley | DigitalVision | Getty Images For some financial advisors, the person behind the assets is the key to providing the best investment advice possible. That is, awareness of the nuanced differences that distinguish clients helps those advisors construct investment portfolios based on more than, say, a person’s age and how long until they
Jordan Siemens | Getty Images When Tara Unverzagt started her own financial planning firm, South Bay Financial Partners, in 2014, she already had a head start. That’s because Unverzagt’s mother, Janet Tussing — one of the first female certified financial planners — was retiring and passed along her book of business. Those clients ranged from
Find yourself struggling to manage your health-care costs in retirement? You’re not alone. As the cost of health care continues climbing faster than the rate of inflation and an aging population is living longer, many financial advisors are focused on the line item in their retired clients’ budgets more than ever. “It’s a cost we
Geber86 | E+ | Getty Images Staying in equities and embracing their risk and potential return just might make sense for some retirees. Older investors with a combination of pension income, Social Security benefits and income annuities have a measure of safety in retirement. “If you have a big pension and Social Security, maybe you
A senior citizen holds a sign during a rally to protect federal health programs at the 8th Annual Healthy Living Festival on July 15, 2011 in Oakland, California. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images For most people, signing up for Medicare is a retirement rite of passage. But as they turn 65 and sort through their
Thomas Barwick | DigitalVision | Getty Images The process of recommending life insurance doesn’t have to be rife with conflicts of interest. Insurance has its place in a client’s comprehensive financial plan. For instance, term coverage can protect a young family in the event of a breadwinner’s early demise. Permanent life insurance — which can
A pedestrian passes in front of a Charles Schwab Corp. office building in New York. Gabriella Angotti-Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images Charles Schwab’s proposed acquisition of TD Ameritrade is stirring up worry among financial advisors. Schwab on Monday announced it would acquire TD in a $26 billion all-stock transaction. Together, the firms will serve
Pedestrians pass in front of a Charles Schwab bank branch in downtown Chicago, Illinois. Christopher Dilts | Bloomberg | Getty Images Financial advisors who hold their clients’ assets at TD Ameritrade are about to face a shake-up. Charles Schwab is in talks to purchase TD Ameritrade for $25 billion, and a deal could be announced
Gorodenkoff | iStock | Getty Images Just in the past month, Scott Van Den Berg, president of Century Management Financial Advisors, has added cybersecurity to the firm’s insurance coverage. Now, in the event there is some kind of breach, the insurance company will help send a team to the office, have bitcoin accounts at the
Hero Images | Hero Images | Getty Images The registered investment advisor industry may be the perfect playground for private equity investors. It has good growth, high profit margins, consistent cash flow and low capital needs. With roughly 13,000 firms in the industry, it is also highly fragmented, ripe for roll-up, and begging for consolidation.
There’s an expense lurking down the road for many retirees that is largely unpredictable but likely: long-term care. With premiums soaring on insurance policies designed to cover that cost, financial advisors are turning to a variety of other strategies to help clients prepare for a day when they might need help with daily living activities
Kenneth Fisher, founder of Fisher Investments. Jonathan Fickies | Bloomberg | Getty Images Individual investors at Fisher Investments transferred $20 million from the firm the week after the billionaire made lewd comments at a conference, according to a research note from Mercer, an advisor to institutional investors. The development was disclosed on a conference call
Jonnie Miles | Photographer’s Choice | Getty Images There may be no free lunch in the financial services industry, but there is now free trading of stocks, exchange-traded funds and options. Charles Schwab announced on Oct. 2 it would eliminate commissions on those products for retail and registered investment advisor clients on its platform. TD
Witthaya Prasongsin | Moment | Getty Images Irish author James Joyce wrote in his novel “Ulysses” that a genius makes no mistakes. “His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery,” he wrote. Talk about hindsight being 20/20. Joyce’s spin aside, mistakes can indeed be learning experiences — and we all make them, especially
Thomas Barwick | Getty Images Financial advisors and wealth managers counsel others on money matters. Doling out financial advice is their bread and butter. And like doctors who turn to other physicians when they’ve got their own aches and ailments, financial advisors often rely on others’ opinions when planning their own finances. And, in some
kupicoo | E+ | Getty Images The aging army of independent registered investment advisors who have spearheaded the growth of the financial planning profession need to follow their own advice when it comes to their businesses — for their clients’ sake, as well as their own. With the average age of financial advisors somewhere in
From left, Utah Valley University students Colton Peck, Doug Macdonald and McKenna Jacobsen. Together, they took first place in the Financial Planning Challenge at the Financial Planning Association’s annual conference in Minneapolis last week. Utah Valley University When Colton Peck started school at Utah Valley University, he was set on being an accountant. But after