Financial Planning

Asset allocation - dividing resources among different investment categories - is a way to lessen the risk of losses in a financial portfolio. Over the past decade, it has become increasingly critical to advisory firms seeking to better serve their clients, particularly high-net-worth clients. This roundup focuses on nine solutions for asset allocation, ranging from the simple and most basic to the most sophisticated. Each is designed to meet the needs of a different size of advisor, and each has a significant presence among accounting firms engaged in financial planning and wealth management.

Helping clients manage their investments isn't easy even in the best of times - and the last few years have certainly not been the best of times for investment portfolios.

Just four weeks after announcing his retirement as the head football coach at the University of Alabama, the legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant collapsed and died at the age of 69 despite having passed a routine physical the day before.

The Internal Revenue Service is getting the word out to employers about a provision in the recently passed Small Business Jobs Act that allows them to amend their 401(k) or 403(b) plans to allow participants to transfer an eligible rollover distribution into a Roth 401(k) or 403(b) account.

The lame duck session slated to begin in mid-November leaves Congress a massive amount of unfinished business.

Super-regional CPA and business advisory firm BKD has launched www.financialreforminsights.com, an interactive portal to help guide financial institutions through the sweeping regulations under legislation such as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Sixty percent of high net worth individuals say they will never retire, according to a new survey that has spotted a trend of the “nevertiree.”

The Investment Program Association, a trade association for the direct investment industry, and the American College, an educational resource for financial advisors, have introduced the first in a planned series of e-learning continuing education courses for financial advisors and financial wholesalers to expand their understanding of direct investments.

Guiding clients on estate planning issues has been highly frustrating to most CPAs for the past year, thanks to the failure of Congress to resolve fundamental questions about the federal estate tax. Unfortunately, the next several months may involve more of the same - but CPAs can still guide clients during this era of uncertainty.

It's all but expected in Boston (and maybe anywhere other than New York) that baseball fans hate the Yankees.