I have found in my life that working together to achieve a common goal provides a much better outcome than trying to figure everything out on my own. This same principle has carried over to my experience in the wealth management industry, specifically in providing service to clients. During my time in the industry, I…

If passing your assets to your heirs is important to you, I recommend that you consider reading the book Preparing Heirs:  Five Steps to a Successful Transition of Wealth and Values”, by Roy Williams and Vic Priesser.  I had the pleasure of reading it recently and found the book to be a very interesting study…

It has happened a number of times since I began my career in investment management. The topic of investing is brought up in conversation and it is immediately compared to gambling, where the odds are stacked against you and you only win if you are lucky. Both gamblers and investors share some similarities. Both risk…

My favorite way to pass the time on my daily commute between my home in Lowell and our office downtown is to listen to podcasts as I drive.  One of the best that I have found is Planet Money, a team at NPR that produces short stories about the global economy.  In my line of…

In my time as an estate planning attorney I met people of all backgrounds and with various levels of wealth.  One client that I remember well was an older woman who was leaving her son millions of dollars.  She lived a very modest life and you would never guess she had millions of dollars stashed…

Given the experience that I have had working with high wage earners, I have uncovered a less discussed truth: they have a difficult task in order to continue their lifestyle throughout retirement. People that are used to living on above average incomes have several hurdles to overcome.  They usually pay more in taxes, they are…

As much as we hear talk of the “new normal” from prominent investment personalities, we believe that it’s just another version of that fateful proclamation heard just before the tech bubble burst in the late 90s – “it’s different this time”.  The fact of the matter is that the same fundamental principles that have governed…

What is phishing?  Phishing is the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be a legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that could be used for identity theft. According to the Federal Trade Commission, phishers send e-mails or pop-up messages that claim to be…

I hope you had a chance to read Laura’s blog post last week about the lack of information available for prospective college students about the long term financial consequences of student loans.  I thought it was an excellent post and have asked my college sophomore and high school junior to read it.  I have been…

In a recent blog post that I wrote just a few weeks ago I drew attention to the fact that many investor predictions for 2014 played out in the market in unexpected ways, not least of which was another strong year for the S&P 500 Index. Large cap U.S. stocks turned in double-digit gains last…