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2 weeks ago | 
investmentnews.com | Ben Henry-Moreland |Michael Kitces
Estate planning can entail different things when going up and down the spectrum of assets and net worth.
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2 weeks ago | 
investmentnews.com | Ben Henry-Moreland |Michael Kitces
At times over the past two years, it's felt like technology development has gone into hyperdrive mode, as AI tools first burst into the mainstream with chatbot-style Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, and now increasingly are becoming embedded into much of financial advisors' everyday technology.
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2 weeks ago | 
investmentnews.com | Ben Henry-Moreland |Michael Kitces
For years, the "Big Four" RIA custodial platforms were Charles Schwab, TDAmeritrade, Fidelity, and Pershing. The notable similarity between all four platforms was that they had each arisen out of their respective firms' brokerage arms (retail brokerage in the case of Schwab, TDA, and Fidelity, and clearing for independent broker-dealers in the case of Pershing), and it probably wasn't a coincidence that those four firms in particular grew to dominate the RIA custodial landscape.
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1 month ago | 
investmentnews.com | Ben Henry-Moreland |Michael Kitces
Advisors have had to choose between generic and advisor-specific AI tools, but with only a 20% market saturation, there is room for Wealthbox and others to shift the competitive landscape. Over the last two years, AI meeting note tools have gone from being essentially nonexistent as a software category to the fastest-growing category on the Kitces AdvisorTechMap.
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2 months ago | 
investmentnews.com | Ben Henry-Moreland |Michael Kitces
Portfolio management is central to the business of most financial advisory firms, and systems that facilitate the portfolio management process have long been one of the three core parts of advisory firms’ tech stacks (along with CRM and financial planning systems). Given the importance of those tools to an advisory firm’s business, then, it would seem to follow that most advisors would be focused on using the portfolio management software that works best for them.
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Jan 15, 2025 | 
kitces.com | Ben Henry-Moreland
Executive SummaryFor most people, Social Security benefits are calculated using a single formula, which takes into account the individual's history of earning income on which they paid Social Security tax. But historically, a subset of workers that spent at least part of their careers in positions that did not pay Social Security tax – including many state and local government workers like teachers and police officers – have had their Social Security benefits reduced, sometimes down to $0.
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Oct 7, 2024 | 
kitces.com | Ben Henry-Moreland
LOGIN or CREATE AN ACCOUNT TO SAVE ARTICLE TO YOUR LIST Welcome to the October 2024 issue of the Latest News in Financial #AdvisorTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors! This month's edition kicks off with the news that digital estate planning platform Wealth.com has raised a whopping $30 million in Series A funding, following on the heels of Vanilla's follow-on...
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Sep 27, 2024 | 
kitces.com | Ben Henry-Moreland
LOGIN or CREATE AN ACCOUNT TO SAVE ARTICLE TO YOUR LIST Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" - this week's edition kicks off with the news that a recent study by Cerulli has shown a sharp increase in the number of affluent investors willing to pay for advice, which on the one hand reflects the increasing financial complexity in peoples' lives (while they've also gotten busier than ever at work and at home) to the extent that they're more willing to work...
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Apr 2, 2024 | 
thestreet.com | Ben Henry-Moreland |Robert Powell
By Ben Henry-MorelandRetirement is a massive business today. People plan and save for retirement with the help of financial advisors, retirement plan providers, and insurance companies, in the hopes that they can stop working with many healthy years left to enjoy themselves without the burden of working for a living. And once they do retire, everyone from retirement communities to golf courses to healthcare systems compete for their dollars.
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Mar 26, 2024 | 
thestreet.com | Ben Henry-Moreland |Robert Powell
Financial advisors often stress the time value of money – that is, $1 today is worth more than that same $1 will be in the future. And much of the art of retirement planning is predicated around this concept: It isn't enough to simply stash more and more money into a savings account at a bank, because those savings will ultimately lose value due to inflation.
