The Third Law of Investing
There is an inverse relationship between interest rates and bond prices.
The Second Law of Investing
By understanding more about compounding, investors can be well equipped to take advantage of the process available to all of us.
Dow 30,000: Power to the People
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has waned in usefulness as a benchmark for investors. Yet, for many investors, the Dow is the market. That's why, despite its fading utility, the history of the DJIA is fascinating.
Lost and Found
Advisors: If you have clients who are feeling lost after this emotional year, completing a values exercise may help them sharpen their life vision.
Three Steps to Building a Long-Term Investment Portfolio
In 1900 an individual's life expectancy was 47 years. Today, the average life expectancy for men and women in the United States is 78 years. Given the fact that many of us are living much longer, it's important to factor in longevity when you construct client investment portfolios.
Restoring Client Confidence amid the COVID-19 Crisis
Help inspire the confidence and courage your clients need to believe the future is still a great investment.
Endowment Spending Policy
A spending plan can help retirees balance the desire to maintain a consistent lifestyle with the need to preserve assets for a retirement that could last 30 to 40 years. How should the spending amount change over time? A plan that...
Building a Cash Flow Reserve Ladder
How do retirees avoid selling their hard-earned retirement assets at the wrong time? The all-important "buy low and sell high" discipline is out of reach when forced to sell in a bear market. A cash flow reserve ladder can provide the...
The Value of Dividends in Retirement
Over the past eighty-seven years, dividends have accounted for over 40% of the total return for the S&P 500 Index. The importance of dividends has been an often overlooked part of investing, but will continue to come to the forefront as...
Bear Market? Advisors: You've Got This
Financial advisors, you may not believe it, but you are prepared for a bear market. Just trust what you've learned, rely upon the basics and use these tips.
#NowMe: Advising Women Over 50
Find out why demographic trends and shared personality characteristics make women over 50 the ideal clients for financial advisors.
Give Your Clients the Gift That Keeps on Giving for Generations
When you ask your clients what they're interested in passing on to their heirs, you probably expect them to discuss their financial assets. After all, in our industry we've been trained to believe that wealthy individuals are primarily...
The Problem with Investment Theories
Why most winners of the Nobel Prize in economics couldn't do an advisor's job.
Becoming an Expert
Some believe experts are made, not born. If that's true, what does it take to become an expert?
What Your Clients Should do if Someone Yells, “Recession” in a Crowded Theater
There's been a lot of talk about recessions lately. Mostly pundits have been warning us that a recession is on the horizon. Recession is a word that appears to strike fear in the hearts of ordinary investors and while it's easy to understand why, that's entirely the opposite of the reaction they should have.
Advising Clients During Life Transitions
Life transitions can often derail clients' plans and frequently result in clients choosing a new advisor. Be sure you know how to respond.
A Tale of Two Definitions
Financial advisors and their clients often speak different languages when it comes to defining risk.
An Advisor's Value: Bridging the Behavior Gap
A growing body of research shows that financial advisors help investors make better decisions, which increases their investment returns.
The Downside of Being Overinformed
We're drowning in information. According to Scientific American, the amount of data that we produce doubles each year. In his book, The Behavioral Investor, Daniel Crosby made that idea tangible by adding that "in 2016, humankind...
The Head and the Heart: The Investment Connection
Every so often, a book linking spirituality to investing hits the market. While some of us consider any instance where we part with a sizeable chunk of change a spiritual experience, that isn't the essence of spiritual investing.
This Holiday Season Give Your Clients the Gift That Keeps on Giving...for Generations
When you ask your clients what they're interested in passing on to their heirs, you probably expect them to discuss their financial assets. After all, in our industry we've been trained to believe that wealthy individuals are primarily...
Assessing the Crash 10 Years Later
Now that we've experienced the longest bull market on record, pundits are on the outlook for the next sector or market that will bring everything crashing to the ground.
Stock Market Dog Days
This is the time of year we call the "Dog Days of Summer." It's said that expression comes from the Romans who associated the hottest and most humid summer days with the brightest and hottest star, Sirius.
Women, Transition, and Financial Advisors
For years, 70% has been the often-quoted percentage of women in a traditional marriage who leave their financial advisors after divorce or the death of their spouse.
Managing Legacy Wealth: Practice Gap Analysis
Use this worksheet to identify the gaps in your practice that prevent you from becoming a true Legacy Wealth Advisor. Once you have identified the gaps, utilize the Thornburg Business Plan worksheet to determine how you will eliminate the gaps.
Managing Legacy Wealth: Creating a Vision for Your Practice Workbook
Complete the fields to document the goals you have for various aspects of your practice. Completing this Workbook, in addition to the Practice Gap Analysis worksheet, will help inform your Business Plan, and provide you with a roadmap to expand your practice to one of a legacy wealth manager.
Managing Legacy Wealth: Philanthropy & Charitable Giving Client Conversation Worksheet
This guide will help position you as a trusted legacy wealth advisor. It enables you to ask the types of questions that will provide you with the information and insight you need to recommend the best approach for your clients. Use this guide with the Family Meeting and Ethical Will worksheets to make the process simple and straightforward.
Managing Legacy Wealth: Business Plan Worksheet
In order to "close the gaps" that are preventing you from operating a true Legacy Wealth Management practice, you need a plan. The plan will be based on the goals you identified in your "Vision Worksheet" and will include tactics that are based on the gaps you identified in your "Gap Analysis." It is important to prioritize the goals you want to achieve and the gaps you want to close. If you take on too much at once, it will seem overwhelming and may cause you to abandon the process.
Managing Legacy Wealth: Ethical Will/Family Legacy Letter Worksheet
An "Ethical Will" (or "Family Legacy Letter") is the product of an ancient tradition in which individuals share their life story, personal values, beliefs, blessings, and advice with future generations. According to Dr. Barry K. Baines, the author of Ethical Wills, "legal wills bequeath valuables, ethical wills bequeath values."
Managing Legacy Wealth: Family Meeting Checklist
A checklist to help with the family meeting.
Managing Legacy Wealth: Sales Guide
This program consists of four presentations with multiple worksheets, checklists, and brochures. It is designed to help advisors transform their businesses into legacy wealth practices and create organic growth by capturing more assets with existing clients, cultivating relationships with family members (thereby increasing retention upon wealth transfer), and generating new business.
All in the Family Managing Legacy Wealth
The changing face of the financial services industry keeps advisors engaged with the challenge of navigating clients through volatile markets, and the ability to anticipate and adapt to change. Today's best business-building...
The Ethical Will Managing Legacy Wealth
As an advisor who works with multiple generations of your clients' families, you are in the position to help your clients start a tradition that guarantees future generations of their family will know about them, the life decisions they made, and the values that guided their lives. That tradition is called an ethical will.
Strategic Philanthropy Managing Legacy Wealth
This case study tells the story of one high net worth family foundation, its journey from an organization that began with a traditional funding approach to one that embraced strategic philanthropy and the resulting rewards.
The Family Meeting: Managing Legacy Wealth
A meeting that encourages families to work together to create a vision of how they will collectively govern and manage their wealth to benefit current and future generations.
You Have the Answer
In this year's annual report, the Trustees of Social Security and Medicare informed us that for the first time since 1982 the amount the programs are paying out will exceed the revenue they're taking in.
The Case for Real Teaming
If there were such a thing as a contest for the best advisory practice structure, teaming would be the winner. For the past 10 years more advisors have created or joined advisory teams than ever before.
Reinventing Your Business
Ask any colleague who has built a booming business and he or she will tell you that at some time or another, maybe more than once, they've had to reinvent their business.
Longevity and the Dividend
Although dividends have accounted for approximately 40% of the total return of the S&P 500 Index over the past 87 years, for some reason, their importance has been overlooked. But, as more investors think about longevity and look for high and growing investments that generate high and growing income, dividends will certainly gain favor.
Building Longevity-Oriented Investment Portfolios
The challenge for investors, who rely on their investment portfolios to supplement their other sources of income, is how to prevent selling their assets at the wrong time.
Managing Legacy Wealth
The old adage, "From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations", describes the challenge of sustaining family wealth. While it makes sense to take adages with a grain of salt...
Interested in Improving Your Business Development Results? Find Out What’s Working for Other Advisors
It probably isn't lost on you that you've chosen one of the most competitive careers around. And you have less time than ever to look for new clients . . .
4 Steps to Funding an Education: Prepare, Plan, Prioritize and Persevere
One obstacle stands between our goal of educating our children and our ability to achieve it: money.
Dividend-Paying Stocks: The Investor’s Swiss Army Knife
Dividend-Paying Stocks: The Investor’s Swiss Army Knife
When it Comes to Investment Advice, Humans Beat Computers
Robo advisers offer some advantages, but the most comprehensive financial guidance still requires human touch.
What Investors Can Learn from the 2016 Presidential Election
Beyond the candidates, we're seeing a spotlight on globalization and demographics—two forces sure to steer the economy for years to come.
Three Overlooked Rewards of Living Longer Lives
Making your retirement savings last multiple decades may be financially daunting, but living to a ripe, old age can be well worth it for individuals, families and the economy.
Retiring Retirement – Longevity Planning Outcomes
For the best longevity planning outcomes, assume a long life, broaden the discussion, and increase the number of chairs at the table.
Retiring Retirement – Longevity Planning: The Rationale
Retiring the traditional retirement conversation and refocusing on the longevity journey doesn't simplify life. It challenges us to broaden our perspective and increases the importance of the decisions we make relative to our health, our wealth, and how each of us uses our life's wisdom to prepare for an abundant second half.
Retiring Retirement – Wisdom
One of the most valuable doesn't trade on an exchange, can't be sold at a Christie's auction, it's called wisdom.
Retiring Retirement – Health
Today, increases in longevity and the decisions associated with longer life are demanding that you help your clients prepare for the future. This may mean developing a plan that integrates health care, financial management and life goals into a strategy that supports and enhances their second half of life.
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