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April 13, 2010 - Vol 4, Issue 15
Dear Robert,
Help your HNW clients get the most out of a Roth Conversion. BlackRock's
upcoming webinar will help you rethink the
Roth opportunity and develop strategies for tax diversification.
Spring has arrived, and along with the warmer weather and daffodils
you will notice that we've redesigned our web site. Our home
page now contains a list of the most recently published articles and
commentaries, and we've made the navigation simpler and better
organized. Look for more improvements in the coming weeks.
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"When faced with critical decisions, our minds naturally want to
go down one path, when a better way to think about the problem is
to go down another path," said Michael Mauboussin. Mauboussin
is the Chief Investment Strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management
and the author of the newly released book Think Twice, and we
review some of the key findings of his research.
The current economic and market environment presents intriguing
challenges for income-seeking, risk-averse investors. One effect of
the Federal Reserve's policy of holding short-term interest rates at
historically low levels is to force cautious, safety-oriented
investors out of cash-equivalent investments. In this article, David
MacEwen, chief investment officer for fixed income, discusses a
number of opportunities that may provide additional yield for clients
within a risk-managed, fixed-income framework. We thank
American Century Investments for their sponsorship.
Advisors provide the greatest value by being an emotional anchor
for clients- keeping the highs from being too high during times
of untrammeled optimism, such as we saw in 2000, and the lows from
being too low during periods of absolute pessimism, such as we saw a
year ago and in many cases still see today. Playing that role
takes more than just having an opinion - you need credible
evidence to back you up, which Dan Richards offers.
While markets may be recovering, public debts are still mounting.
Charlie Curnow reviews Plunder, the new book by Steven
Greenhut, which blames public sector unions for a large portion of
these debts. To Greenhut, we the taxpayers are helpless
villagers, while corrupt public employee unions are barbarians at the
gate, raiding government treasuries and leaving us with nothing but unfunded
liabilities.
The fiscal train wreck in the United States has not been set back on
the tracks, and the global imbalances that led to the financial
crisis have not gone away. Quite to the contrary, writes Michael
Lewittin Shameless, the latest edition of his HCM
newsletter. In fact, if progress isn't made with respect to
these issues, and if intelligent financial reform is not enacted, future
instability is guaranteed. We are privileged to be able to
provide this to you; to subscribe directly to the HCM newsletter, go here.
There is a pitfall that is rarely anticipated and only occurs for
those who are the most successful using social media, writes Kristen
Luke. Social media can create more relationships and
opportunities than one person can reasonably handle.
"What we have come to learn from modern genetics, which has
huge social implications, is that it's neither nature nor nurture. It's
both combined," says James Heckman in this interview with Dan
Richards. Heckman, who won the Nobel Prizein
Economics in 2000, discusses the key drivers of success in human
development.
Lastly, we highlight submissions to Advisor Market Commentaries.
We welcome guest submissions from our readers. For more
information, here are our guidelines.
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