What Are Closet Index Funds And Why Should You Avoid Them?
By: William Hayslett
While mutual fund investments can be exciting, the variety of products available in the mutual fund market can be overwhelming at times. As far as...
What is a Variable Annuity and What Should You Know About it?
By: William Hayslett
A variable annuity offers high growth potential for people with a high-risk appetite and want a steady income as soon as they begin their life...
What is the Difference Between Portfolio Management and Financial Planning?
By: Jonathan Dash
Managing your finances is crucial for everyone, be it an individual or a firm, as it paves the way for financial freedom through the attainment...
5-Step Financial Planning Checklist to Handle Uncertainty
By: William Hayslett
If the coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything, it is that life is uncertain, and that we must account for times when it does not...
How to Protect Your Wealth From Inflation
By: William Hayslett
While planning and accounting for your savings and investments, we often tend to overlook the effects of inflation on the final amount. Inflation is what...
How to Set Short, Medium, and Long-Term Financial Goals
By: William Hayslett
We all aspire to become financially secure. Managing our finances and planning for the future is a crucial step towards this. It helps one decide...
Should you Make Investments Based on What You Hear in the News?
By: William Hayslett
At some point, most of us have considered investing in the stock market hoping to earn a fortune. We’ve heard several success stories – how...
Should you Include Bitcoin in your Retirement Portfolio?
By: William Hayslett
The spectacular rise of Bitcoin since its launch in 2009 is often equated in investing circles to a gold rush. Within a very short span,...
Important Aspects of Financial Planning in the New Digital Economy
By: William Hayslett
The world is a lot different today than it was for the previous generations. The way your parents or grandparents prepared for their retirement and...
Should you Hire a Local Financial Advisor?
By: William Hayslett
Choosing a financial advisor is not easy. The right financial advisor for your needs understands your financial goals and works as per your risk tolerance....
Are Wealth Managers Worth the Cost?
By: William Hayslett
The market disruptions caused by stocks such as GameStop and the cryptocurrency Dogecoin at the beginning of 2021 were indicative of how tricky it is...
What is an Investment Policy Statement (IPS) and How Do You Write One?
By: William Hayslett
Before we begin, let’s first find out what an Investment Policy Statement (IPS) is, shall we? An IPS (Investment Policy Statement) refers to a document...
5 Financial Planning Steps Women Can Take to Build Wealth
By: Jonathan Dash
It’s 2021, and a lot has changed over the years for the better in the movement towards gender equality. Women increasingly feel empowered and ready...
20 Tips to Spend Less and Save Money
By: Jonathan Dash
While the act of putting away some money every once in a while in order to save for the long run sounds simple, we find...
10 Financial Planning Tips for High-Net-Worth Individuals in 2021
By: Jonathan Dash
The financial planning requirements of the rich are vastly different and a lot more complex compared to that of a regular investor. high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs)...
What is a Robo-Advisor and Should you use one?
By: William Hayslett
In the year 2020, more than 10 million brokerage accounts were opened by investors in America, despite the coronavirus pandemic. The economic shock induced by...
What are Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs), and Why do They Matter?
By: Jonathan Dash
Earlier on, there were no retirement programs available for people to generate savings to meet expenses for when they retired and no longer earning via...
Financial Goals and Milestones to Hit Before you Turn 50
By: Jonathan Dash
Reaching the Golden Jubilee Year is a special moment in one’s life. While celebrations are in order, it is also time to reflect on and...
How Do Financial Advisory Asset-Based Fees Work?
By: Jonathan Dash
Financial advisors are specialists that offer advice and guidance on how to best manage your money. They help you formulate a financial plan to achieve...
10 Tax-Planning Questions to Ask your Financial Advisor in 2021
By: William Hayslett
The year 2020 has been one of the most disruptive in the recent past with the coronavirus-led pandemic pushing the world economy to plunge. There...
10 Ways to Build Wealth
By: Jonathan Dash
Generating wealth is an important milestone in everyone’s life. However, not everyone is able to achieve this goal following the same path. You could either...
Should I Roll my 401(k) into an IRA?
By: Jonathan Dash
A 401(k) account is a professional advisory managed account and is the starting point for retirement planning. A 401(k) account is activated when you gain...
What is an IRA?
By: Jonathan Dash
An IRA (Individual Retirement Account) is a tax-advantaged account set up by investors that allows them to save money for retirement. An IRA allows tax-free...
What is a 401(k) and how Does a 401(k) Work?
By: Jonathan Dash
Named after the section of the US Internal Revenue Code under which this retirement planning account is defined, 401(k) accounts are company-sponsored, tax-advantaged, and defined...
5 Financial Adages that Held True During the Pandemic
Uncertainty, unprecedented times, and volatility are three words we continue to hear throughout this coronavirus pandemic. We have also witnessed one of the biggest dichotomies...
Venture Capital: Investing for the Long Term
By: Brain McKinney
Over the past decade, there has been an interesting shift in the way venture backed companies are approaching their Initial Public Offering (IPO). Historically, once...
Why Should I Hire a Financial Planner?
By: William Hayslett
Do you worry about your finances? You aren’t alone. According to a study by Capital One and The Decision Lab that was reviewed in CNBC,...
Do I need a Financial Planner or a Wealth Manager?
By: Jonathan Dash
When it comes to investing, saving for a better future, or managing your wealth, deciding on whether you should seek the guidance of a financial...
How to Get the Best Financial Advice You Deserve From an Advisor
What is your financial advisor’s most valuable asset? It’s not just investments, taxes, financial plans and saving strategies. It’s not their fancy, high-tech system or...
Should You Hold Or Sell Your Long-Term U.S. Government Bonds?
By: Jonathan Dash
The Pandemic and the ensuing Fed actions to revive the market by easing liquidity has pushed the yield of the benchmark 10-year Treasury bonds to...
2020: Embracing the Silver Linings
By: Brain McKinney
As 2020 draws to a close, it’s likely that many of us are harboring a host of mixed emotions surrounding the events of the past...
Paladin’s Registry of Financial Advisors is a Free Service for Investors
By: Jack Waymire
The world’s first financial advisor directory was the Yellow Pages®. All you had to do was thumb through the pages until you found the listings...
How to Find the Best Financial Advisors
By: Jack Waymire
Your first step is to determine the criteria you will use to identify and select the best financial advisors or financial planners. They do not...
What is an Investment Performance Benchmark?
By: Jack Waymire
A Benchmark is a performance goal. Your advisor is paid to produce results that beat the performance of your benchmark. If your advisor does not...
Select an Independent Financial Advisor to Invest Your Assets
By: Jack Waymire
The word “independent” has a lot of positive connotations, but it can also be a deceptive sales pitch by financial advisors who sell retirement products...
Is a Stockbroker a Real Financial Advisor?
By: Jack Waymire
No, they are not. Then why is there so much confusion? It starts with stockbrokers telling investors they are financial advisors. They make this false...
What Does it Mean to be a 5 Star Rated Financial Advisor in the Paladin Registry?
By: Jack Waymire
Financial advisors could have track records, but 99% do not. Why should they produce track records if they don’t have to? Investors are willing to...
Is the Personal Financial Advisor a Dinosaur?
By: Jack Waymire
Venture capitalists are betting hundreds of millions of dollars on firms that deliver web-based investment services. They are betting these firms will change the way...
Are All Certified Financial Planners ™ (CFPs®) Created Equal?
By: Jack Waymire
Absolutely not! The designation means the Certified Financial Planners ™ completed some coursework and passed an examination. It does not mean the planner is an...
The Evolution of the Financial Fiduciary
By: Jack Waymire
There is a lot of discussion about who is a fiduciary and who should be a fiduciary. At the core of the discussion is protecting...
Choosing Between a Financial Advisor and a Robo Advisor
By: Jack Waymire
In the past few years, much has been written about the rise of robo advisors, websites offering automated investment-allocation advice and other portfolio management services....
How to Get Started When You are Ready to Invest
By: Jonathan Dash
It’s great that you are ready to start your investment journey. However, with that decision comes the big question: Where do you invest your money...
Active Investing or Passive Investing – 5 key differences
By: Jack Waymire
Active investing sounds like a positive, proactive way to invest your assets. Passive investing sounds boring – your financial advisor is not doing much. Here...
What is a Realistic Investment Performance Benchmark?
By: Jack Waymire
You make your financial advisor accountable for beating the stock market. You make the S&P 500 index fund your proxy for the performance of the...
Never Assume When Trying to Find a Financial Advisor
By: Jack Waymire
Assumptions can be extremely dangerous when trying to find a financial advisor. An advisor may look the part, sound the part and even feel like...
How to Monitor Investment Performance
By: Jack Waymire
If your money is going to fund your retirement, your investment performance will impact when you retire, how you live during retirement, and your financial...
Jack Waymire Helps Investors Protect Themselves
By: Jack Waymire
Jack Waymire spent 28 years in the financial services industry. For 21 of those years as the president of a Registered Investment Advisory firm that...
Reasons for Financial Planning: How an Advisor Can Help After You’ve Been Injured
By: Jack Waymire
When you initially think “financial planner,” you may think you have to be wealthy, you’re close to retirement or you want to play the stock...
The Track Record of a Financial Advisor: Is it Real? Is it Fake?
By: Jack Waymire
When investors select a financial advisor, one of their most frequent questions is, “What performance can I expect if I select you?” Very few financial...
What is FINRA and What is the Role of FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority)
By: Jonathan Dash
If you are someone who scrutinizes their account statements or your financial documents, you might have come across the word ‘FINRA’ – probably in a...
Volatility, Emotions, and the Transition to Retirement
By: Nicholas Ibello
Retirement is arguably one of the largest life transitions you will ever experience, and the changes that accompany this major life achievement can make many,...
Top 5 Ways to Spend Leftover 529 Funds
By: Nicholas Ibello
The original purpose of a 529 plan is to pay for a college education, but what should you do if your child or grandchild graduates...
Should You Add Gold to Your Investment Portfolio?
By: Brain McKinney
Gold has been a valuable and highly coveted commodity for centuries. Unlike other common investment asset classes, you can touch gold, see gold, and keep...
Why are stocks recovering as the economy declines?
By: Brain McKinney
Optimism. It isn’t something many Americans have been able to hold onto during this COVID-19 financial crisis. From small business shutdowns, record-high unemployment levels, and...
3 Money Smart Ways to Reinvest Your COVID-19 College Tuition Refund
By: Nicholas Ibello
Java-Design-PatternsHas your college canceled its in-person and online classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic? Unfortunately, this has become the norm this spring. Social isolation has...
How to Protect Your Assets at Each Life Stage
By: Brain McKinney
Do insurance options seem overwhelming at times? It can be tricky to navigate the many different plan types and terminologies to find the right fit...
Taking Sick Stocks’ Temperature
By: Evan R. Guido
As you’ve surely noticed by now, I’m confident about the long term strength in the economy, even if the short term outlook is virtually unknowable....
One of The Most Prominent Retiree Risks: Sequence of Returns
By: Brain McKinney
Imagine spending decades meticulously planning and conscientiously saving for retirement only to experience a bear market shortly after leaving the workforce. Suddenly, you’re ready to...
How Will the SECURE Act Affect My Retirement Plans?
By: Gary Williams
In an effort to help Americans better save and prepare for retirement, Congress has passed the first pivotal piece of retirement legislation we have seen...
The Risks and Rewards of Investing in IPOs
By: Gary Williams
Have you ever heard someone touting how they got in on the “ground floor” of a publicly-traded stock and it skyrocketed from there? What did...
What Does Your New Retirement Look Like?
Retirement today is not the same as it was 30, 20, even 10 years ago. Because we’re generally living longer nowadays (we might need to...
THE FINANCIAL EQUATION: Diversification: What You Need to Know
It’s hard to believe I’ve been writing and getting financial articles published for years and I’ve yet to cover the topic of diversification with my...
What Does Retirement Really Mean (To You)?
By: Gary Williams
Retirement is a nebulous word that means different things to different people. For some, it means leaving the workforce permanently to relax at home. For...
What is an inverted yield curve, and what does it mean to me?
By: Gary Williams
In early August of 2019, headlines referring to the feared “inverted yield curve” were on display all over news, financial websites and publications, sparking a...
Thinking about Sending Your Child to a Private High School?
By: Gary Williams
There are many reasons why parents may consider sending their child to a private school; from the varied curriculum these schools are able to offer,...
A Financial Advisor’s Point of View: What and When to Teach your Kid’s about Money
By: Gary Williams
As every father or mother knows, being a parent can be challenging. There are so many important aspects in life you need to share so...
Tips To Make Sure Your Beneficiaries Are Accurate
There are numerous life events that can make us reconsider who we want to leave money to in our 401(k)s, IRAs, 403(b)s, annuities, life insurance...
Investing in Technology Stocks
By: Gary Williams
If you have been investing for at least twenty years, you have seen both the good and bad times for technology stocks. The late nineties...
Your Portfolio During a Trade War
By: William Hayslett
Trade Wars in The News Anyone who has checked the news once in the past month knows that America is on the precipice of a...
Commercial Real Estate Investments
By: Gary Williams
When most investors think about investing in real estate, residential real estate is the natural thought that comes to mind first. On the other hand,...
How to Build an Investment Portfolio
By: William Hayslett
An investment portfolio is a collection of financial products carefully chosen from different asset classes in proportions that suit the investor’s risk profile. This might...
How to Plan Your Taxes if You’re a High-Net-Worth-Individual
By: Jonathan Dash
The broad scope of tax legislation that has become law over the past several years has prompted many higher-income taxpayers to take a closer look...
5 Investment Strategies For High-Net-Worth-Individuals
By: Jonathan Dash
High net worth individuals (HNWIs) are people with liquid assets in the range of $1 million and $5 million. What sets individuals with a high...
Ten Ways Parents Can Financially Plan for Their Child’s College Education
By: William Hayslett
Life changes radically upon the arrival of a baby. While a baby does stand true to its moniker of ‘a bundle of joy’, there is...