The wild ride continued last month as the market declined over 3.0% early on, only to stage a strong recovery in the back half of the month.

Succession planning can be one of the most challenging aspects of owning and operating a family business. And while many family business owners may dream of passing ownership of the business onto future generations, keeping the business within the family isn’t always a viable option. When a clear successor within the family doesn’t exist, family business owners are faced with the difficult...

Keeping a family business within the same family from generation to generation is not always a possibility. Nevertheless, many family business owners want to ensure that the firm and culture they have worked hard to build is preserved well into the future. An Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) is a way to keep control of a family-owned business within a different type of family—employees who...

The Federal Reserve raised the target range for short-term rates to 2.00% - 2.25%, as expected. Today’s information revealed neither a sign that the Fed was preparing to pause nor accelerate the process of rate normalization.

Emerging markets have become volatile in recent months due to the conflict over global trade, especially as it becomes a showdown between the U.S. and China. Both rhetoric and action on this front have been and may continue to be highly unpredictable.

Mid-cap stocks are often referred to as the market’s sweet spot—they are typically less volatile than small-cap stocks but offer more growth potential than large caps. This combination has resulted in favorable risk-adjusted returns over time, which investors tend to seek. Yet, historically, mid-cap stocks have been largely overlooked.  In the early 1990s, two investment teams began to...

Family-owned businesses are the backbone of the American economy. However, despite the job security and family legacy potential many of these businesses represent for the families that own them, the importance of careful succession planning is often overlooked. Indeed, only about 30% of family businesses survive into the second generation, according to the Family Business Institute.  ...

One of the many challenges high net worth families face during the estate and legacy planning process is knowing when and how to educate and prepare their children for the wealth they are set to inherit. While today’s rising generations—millennials in particular—may have a solid grasp of financial management concepts, wealth literacy is very different than financial literacy. Helping younger...

If you are self-employed, you know that owning your own business takes a large investment of time, money, and hard work. You dedicate all your resources to building a successful company, but success is often a double-edged sword. The more money you earn, the more taxes you owe as a portion of your overall income. And, your progress towards retirement may stagnate as your focus shifts to more...

Legacy planning is an opportunity for families to define their values while creating long-term objectives to their wealth. While preserving wealth and developing an effective approach to pass it from generation to generation is often a challenge, sometimes the most difficult aspect of legacy planning is knowing when and how to integrate younger generations and trusted advisors. When it comes to...

Culture is widely considered to be one of the most important elements of a successful business. It’s also critically important for any family—especially when creating a long-term wealth plan and sustainable legacy.

In general, VRDNs have three key characteristics that distinguish them from other municipal bonds:

If you are beginning the legacy and estate planning process, your first concern may naturally be how to maximize what you give to your family and favorite charities by minimizing what you pay in taxes. However, your legacy is not just about increasing the financial wealth that you hope to pass on to future generations. While this objective can usually be met through careful and collaborative...

Download PDF Most headlines related to emerging markets (EM) have been decidedly negative this year. The growing U.S. trade conflict with China (by far the biggest emerging economy) helped spark a bear-market-sized decline in the Shanghai Composite Stock Market Index over the last seven months.1 More recently, the economic and financial travails of Turkey have rippled through global...

Stabilization of the U.S. dollar, progress on trade agreements and signs of a recovery in the emerging markets all contributed to solid returns for the month.