Wealth Manager Web May 2006

Cover Story

• Down the Rabbit Hole

  By Ben Mattlin

  The statistics are staggering: 90 percent of some 21 million U.S. businesses are family-owned, according to the U.S. Small Business Association. In all, they employ...

• Building Rules

  By Susan B. Weiner

  Spring is here and with it, increased SEC regulation. All RIAs want to put their clients' interests first. If only compliance didn't cost advisors so...

• In Medias Res

  By Peter D. Fleming

  Maybe these are the funds Goldilocks was looking for: The small caps were too volatile, the large caps did not provide enough growth potential, but...

• Coming Back

  By Stan Luxenburg

  After the market collapse that began in 2000, plenty of investors soured on technology funds. But the mood has begun to change. During the 12...

• Buy and H-o-o-l-d

  By James Picerno

  Index funds and passive management are thought by some to be one and the same, but in practice, indexing has proven itself far less passive...

• Valuing Commodities

  By James Picerno

  Commodities are the new "new thing" when it comes to tapping so-called alternative investments for improving the risk-adjusted performance of conventional stock and bond portfolios....

• Le Bond du Jour

  By Russell Wild

  Pop quiz: Foreign bonds make up what percent of fixed-income investment opportunities worldwide? A. 23 percent B. 52 percent C. More than 75 percent D. Who cares? The answer, per...

• Weighing It Up

  By Sherree Decovny

  The open economy in the United States has fostered rampant consumerism. We just love to shop. The trouble is, we save very little as a...

• Cyber Crime

  By Mary Kathleen Flynn

  The nature of computer crime is changing. Attackers are moving away from broad attacks on corporate firewalls--the high-profile stunts that wreak havoc on millions of...

• Going Forward

  By Robert N. Gordon

  Wall Street's hedging tool of choice, the prepaid variable forward, is under intense scrutiny due to a Technical Advice Memorandum recently released by the IRS....

• Keep it Simple

  By David J. Drucker

  Most readers know the name David Yeske because he presided over the Financial Planning Association in 2003. But relatively few people know anything about Yeske's...

• What Lies Beneath

  By Lisa Gray

  In the industry-wide scramble to attract wealthy clients, advisors can sometimes overlook essential elements of differentiation. Consider structures governing ownership and control. A family member...

• Time Warp

  By Brent Hicks

  Virtually every survey of advisors indicates that the majority of them face a daily battle--how to best allocate their time, energy and resources. Most advisors,...

• A Woman's Touch

  By Nancy R. Mandell

  "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" moaned Prof. Henry Higgins in one of My Fair Lady's memorable moments. If Higgins were in the...

• Sitting Pretty

  By Ed McCarthy, CFP

  Tom Vaughan doesn't own a restaurant, but he served over 12,000 free lunches in the 1990s. Vaughan, founder and CEO of Retirement Capital Strategies LLC...

• A 'True' Story

  By Gregory Taggart

  When Wyoming oilman Dave True decided to use buy-sell agreements to make sure his various businesses stayed in the family and to secure some estate...

• Blue-Blood Blues

  By Ellen Uzelac

  What do the wealthy really want? Few are as uniquely qualified to answer that question as Thayer Willis. Not only is this wealth counselor an heir...

• Game, Set, Match

  By Daniel Moisand

  March is professional sports month at the Moisand household. During this month, our corner of the world is visited by professional athletes we do not...