
Finally....A Fiduciary Standard that Makes Sense
With regard to a fiduciary standard for my industry, it’s been a long road so I won’t bore you with the historical details. From the lawsuits (see End of “Merrill Lynch” Rule Leave...
With regard to a fiduciary standard for my industry, it’s been a long road so I won’t bore you with the historical details. From the lawsuits (see End of “Merrill Lynch” Rule Leave...
For the last week, our local news in the DFW area has been all abuzz about problems within the DPFP (Dallas Police & Fire Pension). A great MarketWatch article came out yesterd...
Putting your child on an allowance is a critical step towards their eventual financial independence. It’s important to keep this future goal in mind when devising an allowance stra...
Disposable is a terrible descriptor for excess income. If we’re not careful, the excess income we earn over what we need can become a trap. More often than not, we’re going to spen...
At the urging of a friend I scheduled a golf lesson last weekend. The instructor patiently watched as balls ricocheted left and right off my 8 iron. With a grunt, he disappeared. I...
In America, paying down debt is a rite of passage. Most of us at one point or another have felt the suffocating effects of too much debt. Deleveraging can be a long and complicated...
Consumers and practitioners alike often fall into a trap. In lieu of calculating a retirement plan, we instead rely too heavily on oversimplified rules of thumb and general advice....
It’s tax planning season at Schulz Wealth. From now until Thanksgiving, we’ll have our eyeshades on, reviewing accounts and client files to make sure we close out the year in a tax...
The Wall Street Journal did a whole series of articles last week on the big shift major mutual fund companies are seeing away from active management. See: Wall Street’s ‘Do-Nothing...
Do you have a fire safe at home? If you don’t, you should. It’s an important piece of any Estate plan, and too often overlooked. Some people prefer safe deposit boxes, but I like t...
Indexing is not the same as smart, low cost investing. With indexing, you accept the market performance of an index designed to measure market performance. A key point here: market...
One month away from the general election, everyone is talking about how the next President will affect the stock market. Opinions vary based upon political leanings, but most belie...
updated May 1, 2018 For many people, there is a point where things change financially. It’s at different stages of life for different people, but at that point, it’s time to get se...
As an investment adviser, people ask me all the time “how’s the market doing”, and I always try to answer politely. Believe it or not, I never watch CNBC and unless I’m trading tha...
One of the first things I realized when I started in this business was the need for long-term care insurance. It was clear then, and is still true today, that living longer increas...
Life insurance agents created the financial planning community, and sadly their own was damaged in the process. Can recent regulation spur a rebirth? Needs-based selling, where an ...
You’ve still got time. Think of the DOL’s new fiduciary rules as a shot across the bow. Heed the warning, change course, and discover how rewarding this business can be without the...
It’s inevitable, from working over twenty years in an industry like mine, you tend to get a little cynical. The ink is hardly dry on the new “fiduciary” standard promulgated by the...
updated April 25, 2018 If your advisor is not on the same page with you, it makes it harder to weather downturns. There are five very basic service points your advisor should be hi...
With billions of dollars exchanging hands each day, continual fluctuations in prices, and constant media chatter about the “market”, it’s easy to lose sight of what we are actually...
We headed into our first semi-annual client reviews of the year last week with a certain level of apprehension. A big drop in the market right out of the gate wore heavily on my mi...
For many years now, the Department of Labor has been steadily attacking business as usual in the retirement plan selling business. Based upon the Pension Protection Act of 2006, fi...
Last Tuesday, we pretended like a tornado hit the office. All day we worked from home, testing our communications and computer systems to make sure we would be able to do our jobs ...