Wealth Think

Ed Slott, Your IRA Expert, examines your IRA and 401(k) issues, including how does the IRS plan to provide relifer from strict Roth conversion deadlines for those impacted by Hurricane Sandy.

Every once in a while, advisors are presented with special opportunities to build trust and win client loyalty. It’s when clients are feeling excessive fear, uncertainty, or doubt, that it is your responsibility to reassure them, educate them, and guide them. With so many factors impacting your clients right now, what do they need from you?

As the wealth management industry continues to evolve, financial advisors have a broader range of choices than ever before in determining the structure and growth trajectory of their own practices. Competition for successful advisors with strong books of business among the wirehouses remains fierce, while opportunities for ownership in that world remain elusive.

A few years ago, a trio of analysts created a stir when they published two memos suggesting that the American economy had become a “plutonomy” – one that is highly and disproportionately controlled by the extremely wealthy. Keith Webber says that, when looking ahead to the millions of baby boomers who will be retiring in the next 15 years, it’s not hard to envision the idea of retirement turning into a “plutirement,” with two very different retirement realities facing your clients.

When people think of jobs on Wall Street, they often imagine a bunch of accountants, analysts, stockbrokers, mathematicians and other brainy types. But not everyone in the financial sector follows the same path.

We got lucky in 2012. The financial markets held up. The economy, while slow, didn’t tank. Inflation remained benign. And the world held together. Blogger Steve Sanduski asks, will we say the same about 2013 a year from now?

How important is naming, branding, promoting and marketing? For some independent advisors who came to independence from larger employee advisor models, you may not have thought as much about your brand in the past. As an independent firm in a growing and increasingly competitive landscape, it’s important to recognize that you are building a brand as much as a business.

The impact of last week’s tax accord in Congress -- officially known as the American Tax Relief Act of 2012 -- is likely to be far wider and more complex than many have imagined. And many of these complexities will directly impact financial advisors.

Blogger Craig Faulkner says he is tired of hearing people his age talk about how confusing all the new technology is. He is convinced that most advisors are more intimidated by the idea of technology than by the technology itself. Check out three tricks to help you get the jump on all of the new data, devices, and demands they make on your brain and your time.

Ed Slott, Your IRA Expert, examines how the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will impact Roth IRAs.