Financial planning

Investor demand improved, despite the continuation of outflows from municipal bond mutual funds for a 23rd consecutive week, at $503 million for the week of Oct. 30.

The IRS released the annual cost-of-living adjustments last week affecting dollar limitations for pension plans and other retirement-related items for tax year 2014.

After columnist (and startup RIA) Dave Grant discussed the challenges of having prospects say no, Chad Smith — an advisor at Financial Symmetry in Raleigh, N.C. — sympathized on Twitter.

Can a different investment model create greater portfolio diversification than the traditional 60/40 asset allocation model?

What, exactly, do high-performing advisory firms do differently than their less successful peers?

The real estate market may have had its ups and downs in recent years, but REITs are holding their value and merit a place in client portfolios.

Gold is down from it's high of around $1890 in 2011, but some investors are still inquiring about including gold and other precious metals in their portfolios.

The Treasury Department and the IRS have loosened the “use it or lose it” rule for flexible spending arrangements for health care, allowing participants in health benefit plans to carry over up to $500 from their FSA from year to year.

The agency issued its annual inflation adjustments for more than 40 tax provisions, including the tax rate schedules, and other tax changes for 2014.

Eight leading managers of money-market mutual funds urged the SEC to alter the way it defines retail funds in proposed new rules for the industry.

At its most basic, relative strength is a ratio of stock or index price-to-market average or other indices.

Wealthy families' tangled needs can create a mess of inconsistencies and other problems.

The academic community is struggling to mint new financial planners as fast as the industry gobbles them up.

The changes to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program introduce credit underwriting criteria to the product for the first time, which until now only had been using actuarial standards in the decision making process, a reverse mortgage specialist said.

If a storm similar to Hurricane Sandy makes landfall, how many homeowners would default on their mortgage?

Pimco, the bond manager that started expanding into stocks four years ago, hired Virginie Maisonneuve from Schroders to lead the push after Neel Kashkari left in January.

With a Roth IRA conversion and a precise recharacterization, a client can report the right amount of income to fill up a low tax bracket each year.

Pimco's Bill Gross said that wealthy Americans, having reaped the benefits of favorable tax treatment, should be willing to pay a greater share to bolster the prospects of the working class.

With an anticipated spike in demand for advisors over the next few years, financial planning is one of the best industries to get into. Here are 30 standout schools for a career in planning.

There’s a major misperception of what a buy-and-hold investment strategy is, but it's what you buy and hold that makes all the difference.