Domestic equities closed down 14.5% on June 29, 2010 from their April 23rd high. That’s a significant decline. Of course, advisors tout sophisticated (and very expensive) asset allocation and diversification strategies[...]

In our role as financial advisors (financial actualizers?) some of the greatest value we can deliver is helping clients to truly make a material and meaningful difference in the social issues they personally value. Such [...]

Guaranteed income for life! This is the marketing cry of the insurance industry, and emotionally it has a lot of appeal. The soothing comfort implied is so enticing that there are actually proposals from the Obama admini[...]

Top Ten List of Misleading Statements — Are You Guilty or Are You Beyond Reproach? In the columns I’ve written so far, we have covered some pretty heavy-duty topics about ethics and integrity to build trust with o[...]

I recently had the displeasure to have to terminate an agreement with an advisor we have been working with for the last year or so. I had to terminate him for ethical reasons, but he didn’t understand those reasons. Yo[...]

Amidst the blizzard of greeting cards, gift baskets and trinkets wrapped in pretty bows that fill our offices this time of year (both inbound from vendors and outbound to clients) it might serve us well to think about th[...]

We all understand the word, “ethics.” It’s either black or white -- no gray areas, no “situational ethics” for those of us who believe in right and wrong. Unfortunately, we see many people playing by two sets o[...]

But we know that ethics and leadership values trickle down from the top. If you are involved in the kind of environment where managers don’t care if the producers are selling inappropriate products or not, and are only[...]