Wealth Management

MAY 14, 2025

Advisors can better serve wealthy clients through strategic charitable giving of appreciated assets, from real estate to business interests.

Assets 287

Assets Clients 287

Calculated Risk

MAY 14, 2025

From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey Mortgage applications increased 1.1 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Associations (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 9, 2025. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 1.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier.

Government 236

Government Economics Marketing Marketing 236

Calculated Risk

MAY 12, 2025

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Mortgage Rates Jump to 2 Week Highs After US/China Trade Talks Tariffs and trade policy have been a new and important consideration for the bond market for just over a month now. That matters to mortgage rates because mortgage pricing is primarily determined by bond prices. Over the weekend, the US and China agreed on a 90 day pause on the more extreme tariff brinksmanship.

Economy 268

Economy Marketing Marketing 268

The Big Picture

MAY 15, 2025

Hey, just back after taking the redeye home from Futureproof Colorado , and getting my feet back under me. But I wanted to briefly discuss tomorrow’s release of the University of Michigan (UMich) long-term inflation expectations. You probably know my thoughts on both Inflation Expectations and Sentiment Surveys. ICYMI, Inflation Expectations are a backwards looking exercise in the Recency Effect.

Media 214

Media Banking 214

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Clients

Nerd's Eye View

MAY 16, 2025

Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" - this week's edition kicks off with the news that Republicans in the House of Representatives this week released their long-awaited tax plan to address the impending sunset of many measures in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The proposed legislation makes several aspects of TCJA 'permanent', including maintaining TCJA's tax brackets and the elevated estate tax exemption, while also introducing new potential tax-savings op

Financial Planner 225

Financial Planner Financial Advice Education Taxes 225

Abnormal Returns

MAY 11, 2025

Also on the site How to contribute to the Jonathan Clements Getting Going on Savings Initiative. (abnormalreturns.com) The gold dilemma isn't going anywhere. (abnormalreturns.com) Top clicks this week You are NOT Warren Buffett. How to be a better you. (ritholtz.com) Why municipal bonds are underperforming in 2025. (morningstar.com) What you are saying when you bet on individual stocks.

Investing 184

Investing Investments Marketing Marketing 184

The Big Picture

MAY 14, 2025

A bonus LIVE episode of Masters in Business: I speak with bestselling author and financial journalist Michael Lewis, live, from the Landmark Theater in Port Washington, NY. Our wide-ranging, 90-minute conversation covered the full arc of his career, from Liars Poker to this years Who is Government. The informative and at times hilarious conversation included his experiences turning Moneyball into a film (including on-set hijinks from Brad Pitt), how his career as a writer evolved, and what he

Government 130

Government 130

Nerd's Eye View

MAY 15, 2025

Young advisors may feel – and face – an extra burden to prove their expertise to clients. After all, it can feel odd to create an estate plan that will impact a client’s grandchildren… when those grandchildren may be older than the advisor themselves! And while any advisor needs to determine how much detail to share when explaining strategic decisions, younger advisors may feel added pressure to prove their credibility.

Financial Planning 147

Financial Planning Planning Communication Clients 147

Abnormal Returns

MAY 16, 2025

Companies Charter Communications ($CHTR) and Cox Communications are merging. (cnbc.com) Meta's ($META) Facebook and Instagram are increasingly scam-filled. (wsj.com) How big an additional opportunity is experiences for Airbnb ($ABNB)? (platformaeronaut.com) Apple Apple ($AAPL) made a strategic mistake. (spyglass.org) Apple ($AAPL) is never going to make iPhones in the U.S.

Communication 167

Communication Media Economy Marketing 167

Wealth Management

MAY 14, 2025

Betterment has acquired Rowboat Advisors, a portfolio optimization software provider with a focus on tax efficiency and direct indexing.

Taxes 242

Taxes Portfolio 242

Speaker: Claire Grosjean, Global Finance & Operations Executive

Finance teams are drowning in data—but is it actually helping them spend smarter? Without the right approach, excess spending, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities continue to drain profitability. While analytics offers powerful insights, financial intelligence requires more than just numbers—it takes the right blend of automation, strategy, and human expertise.

Management

Calculated Risk

MAY 16, 2025

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Housing Starts Increased to 1.361 million Annual Rate in April A brief excerpt: Total housing starts in April were at expectations and starts in February and March were revised up, combined. The third graph shows the month-to-month comparison for total starts between 2024 (blue) and 2025 (red). Total starts were down 1.7% in April compared to April 2024.

214

214

A Wealth of Common Sense

MAY 11, 2025

It’s been a wild ride in the stock market this year: The S&P 500 was up around 5% on the year through mid-February. It was more or less straight down from there. By the end of the first week in April the market was down more than 15%, good enough for a drawdown of 18.9% from peak to trough. Now stocks are up nearly 14% from the lows and down less than 4% on the year.

Marketing 116

Marketing Marketing 116

Nerd's Eye View

MAY 12, 2025

A common structure at many advisory firms is for the owner to handle most of the sales and prospecting, while employee advisors focus on delivering planning and analysis for existing clients. While this model can work well in the early stages of a firm, it often becomes a bottleneck over time, limiting growth to the firm owner's marketing capacity and leaving employee advisors underprepared for more senior roles that require business development skills.

Financial Advisor 130

Financial Advisor Marketing Marketing Healthcare 130

Abnormal Returns

MAY 11, 2025

Markets The impact of macro events can take longer than you think. (mrzepczynski.blogspot.com) Why gold has a unique reputation among investors. (humbledollar.com) 2025 is not that unusual stock-market wise. (awealthofcommonsense.com) Berkshire Hathaway How Berkshire Hathaway ($BRK.A) came to own a big chunk of Apple ($AAPL). (readtrung.com) Berkshire Hathaway ($BRK.A) is living with the downside of success.

Marketing 144

Marketing Marketing Economics Government 144

Speaker: David Worrell, CFO, Author & Speaker

Your financial statements hold powerful insights—but are you truly paying attention? Many finance professionals focus on the income statement while overlooking key signals hidden in the balance sheet and cash flow statement. Understanding these numbers can unlock smarter decision-making, uncover risks, and drive long-term success. Join David Worrell, accomplished CFO, finance expert, and author, for an engaging, nontraditional take on reading financial statements.

Numbers

Wealth Management

MAY 12, 2025

The increased popularity of UMAs is being driven by a variety of trends in the wealth management universe.

Wealth Management 255

Wealth Management Management 255

Calculated Risk

MAY 13, 2025

From the NY Fed: Change in Household Debt Balances Mixed; Student Loan Delinquencies Rise Sharply The Federal Reserve Bank of New Yorks Center for Microeconomic Data today issued its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. The report shows total household debt increased by $167 billion (0.9%) in Q1 2025, to $18.20 trillion. The report is based on data from the New York Feds nationally representative Consumer Credit Panel.

Retail 165

Retail Banking Accounting Economics 165

The Big Picture

MAY 16, 2025

This week, I speak with John Montgomery , CEO, Founder and Portfolio Manager of Bridgeway Capital Management. His responsibilities include the firms strategic direction, investment management and risk oversight, portfolio management, and mentoring. John holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, a BA in Philosophy from Swarthmore College, and graduate degrees from MIT and Harvard Business School.

Management 130

Management Portfolio Management Transportation Engineering 130

Nerd's Eye View

MAY 13, 2025

Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 437th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast ! My guest on today's podcast is Ed Slott. Ed is the president of Ed Slott And Company, a financial education company based in Rockville Centre, New York that offers seminars and newsletters for financial advisors and consumers focused primarily on IRAs. What's unique about Ed, though, is how he has been able to charge premium fees for his accounting and education services over time by becoming a nationally r

Financial Advisor 130

Financial Advisor Accounting Education Estate Planning 130

Speaker: Erroll Amacker

Automation is transforming finance but without strong financial oversight it can introduce more risk than reward. From missed discrepancies to strained vendor relationships, accounts payable automation needs a human touch to deliver lasting value. This session is your playbook to get automation right. We’ll explore how to balance speed with control, boost decision-making through human-machine collaboration, and unlock ROI with fewer errors, stronger fraud prevention, and smoother operations.

Accounting

Abnormal Returns

MAY 13, 2025

Quant stuff The case for upping the complexity of your models. (alphaarchitect.com) Some recent academic research including 'Bond Factor Momentum and Its Predictability for Stock Returns.' (alphainacademia.substack.com) A review of "Reminiscences of a Bond Operator: A Guide to Investing in Corporate Debt" by Mark A. Rieder. (blogs.cfainstitute.org) Research Why profitability matters.

Investing 144

Investing Investments 144

Wealth Management

MAY 15, 2025

Jump, Zeplyn and Zocks, which can all capture meeting notes and create summaries, help generate client communications and trigger service actions, have now been integrated with the AdvisorEngine platform.

Communication 253

Communication Clients 253

Calculated Risk

MAY 15, 2025

On a monthly basis, retail sales increased 0.1% from March to April (seasonally adjusted), and sales were up 5.2 percent from April 2024. From the Census Bureau report : Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April 2025, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $724.1 billion, up 0.1 percent from the previous month , and up 5.2 percent from April 2024.

Retail 194

Retail Sales Food 194

Advisor Perspectives

MAY 16, 2025

Consumer sentiment fell for a fifth straight month as ongoing economic uncertainty and inflation worries continue to drag down consumer attitudes. The Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 50.8 in May, the second lowest reading on record.

Economics 109

Economics 109

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Accounting

A Wealth of Common Sense

MAY 15, 2025

Bill Sweet joined me on the show again to discuss questions from our audience about harvesting gains in your stock portfolio to diversify, remote work for less money versus going back to the office for more, mis-timing the market and picking the right benchmark for your investments. Further Reading: How Long Does it Take For Stocks to Bottom in a Bear Market?

Portfolio 72

Portfolio Marketing Marketing Investing 72

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

MAY 15, 2025

Price Action Lab had a blog post that amusingly referred to managed futures as being a long term commitment. That led to an older post that tried to figure out the optimal allocation to managed futures. Basically, they said to get the highest return you should have zero in managed futures and if you want the best Sharpe Ratio (risk adjusted return) you should have 75% in managed futures.

Management 64

Management Accounting Clients Taxes 64

Wealth Management

MAY 13, 2025

Up to $30 billion in mutual fund marketing and distribution fees could be at risk if the SEC approves dual share classes. The Mag Seven stocks have regained momentum in recent weeks, but will that last? These are among the investment must reads we found this week for financial advisors.

Investing 230

Investing Investments Distribution Financial Advisor 230

Calculated Risk

MAY 11, 2025

The first graph shows the unemployment rate by four levels of education (all groups are 25 years and older) through April 2025. Note: This is an update to a post from several years ago. Unfortunately, this data only goes back to 1992 and includes only three recessions (the stock / tech bust in 2001, and the housing bust/financial crisis, and the 2020 pandemic).

Education 162

Education 162

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Sales

Advisor Perspectives

MAY 13, 2025

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index dropped for a fourth straight month, falling to 95.8 in April. Notably, the percent of small business owners who reported difficulty filling job openings fell to its lowest level since January 2021.

86

86

A Wealth of Common Sense

MAY 16, 2025

I now do all my reading on a Kindle Paperwhite. You don’t have any weird angles when you’re reading. You can highlight passages, read in the dark and store thousands of books on one little device. Sometimes it feels like I have thousands of unread books on my Kindle. Because it’s so easy to download them, I buy a lot of books. Many of them I finish.

Marketing 74

Marketing Marketing 74

oXYGen Financial

MAY 11, 2025

![CDATA[ You've probably heard the phrase, "Pay Yourself First." It's one of the most powerful and often-repeated pieces of financial advice out there. But let's be honesthow many people actually live by it? Maybe you already know what it means. Maybe you've even set up an automatic savings plan. But for most people, saving is an afterthought.

Financial Advice 71

Financial Advice Planning 71

Wealth Management

MAY 15, 2025

The key steps, challenges and rewards of transitioning from a wirehouse to an independent RIA.

205

205

Speaker: Aaron Berson

Managing spend is more than a cost cutting exercise – it's a pathway to smarter decisions that unlock efficiency and drive growth. By understanding and refining the spending process, financial leaders can empower their organizations to achieve more with less. Explore the art of balancing financial control with operational growth. From uncovering hidden inefficiencies to designing workflows that scale your business, we’ll share strategies to align your organization’s spending with its strategic g

Management