I’ve been fielding a lot of inquiries lately about Roth IRA tax planning for the future. Let me do my best to explain who should be doing what in terms of Roth conversions for 2010. Let me preface this by saying none of this is an exact science. There are all sorts of moving parts in the tax cod ... Read more

Many conservative investors like Certificates of Deposit (CDs) because of their stability. It is true that your principal rarely fluctuates with a CD. However, the rate you get is variable, volatile and highly unpredictable as has been evidenced by interest rates in the economy over the past 15 ye ... Read more

There has been much debate over the past decade about the value proposition of actively-managed mutual funds to the average investor. The potential advantage which you’re really paying for with mutual funds is the possibility of choosing a brilliant portfolio manager who can beat their benchmark ... Read more

I’ve gotta say—I was a bit surprised by the opening life of Evan Simonoff’s column in the October Financial Advisor magazine. He said “Who among us (referring to the financial advisor community) really takes this 60% rally in equity prices seriously.” He then goes on to say its “remark ... Read more

When I have new potential clients in my office, I’m always interested to see what their current financial advisor is doing for them. Needless to say, I’m frequently disappointed with the level of service standards (many differing markedly from my own) which some advisors display with multi-mil ... Read more

A year ago it was hard for me to keep variable annuity (VA) wholesalers out of my office. The features offered by various insurance companies would change so rapidly that I’d have to take meetings to stay up-to-date.* There was essentially a competition between insurers to load more and greater ... Read more

When people refer to mutual funds they are most often referring to ‘open-end’ mutual funds in which investors buy and sell shares on a regular basis. Most mutual funds have active managers who, with their teams, make decisions as to the fund holdings which correspond to the fund’s stated obj ... Read more

The craze of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) which employ leverage (the use of borrowed capital to increase the potential return of an investment) has been on a tear over the past year.* It makes sense that speculative investors would toy around with such vehicles given the extreme market volatility ... Read more

Welcome to one of the most misunderstood financial products out there. It’s no surprise how little most investors know about variable annuities because they’re extremely complicated and their explanations often come from insurance brokers and financial advisors who often don’t adequately exp ... Read more

Many of my clients and readers understand my general preference for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over mutual funds.* It isn’t that I doubt the ability of any active mutual fund managers to outperform their benchmarks—plenty of them do. It’s just that if I have to pick an overall methodology ... Read more