Private Asset Management or Private Wealth Management?
Jean L. P. Brunel, CFA

Often the terms “private asset management” and “private wealth management” are used interchangeably. Private asset management addresses asset allocation, tax efficiency, and their interaction. Wealth management encompasses more extensive issues and introduces more complex interactions.

Who Should Buy a Lifetime Income Annuity? And When?
Don Ezra

Investors with modest wealth are exposed to greater longevity risk than those with sufficient wealth to endow spending needs across generations. They therefore benefit from using annuities to lock a desired lifestyle. Moreover, the value of an annuity increases as one ages. 

Customized Wealth Management: Using the Discretionary Wealth Framework
Jarrod W. Wilcox, CFA, and Jeffrey E. Horvitz

The “balance sheet” approach of Discretionary Wealth allows individual investors to simultaneously incorporate in their investment portfolio consideration of risk tolerance, shortfall constraints, consumption changes, human capital, and investment growth over long investment horizons, yet with substantial short term volatility and uncertainty. 

The How, Why, and Why Not of
“What If?”
Dan diBartolomeo

The complexity of planning and managing investments for private clients has led to increasing use of numerical simulation methods. These methods are useful tools for dealing with complexity but are not substitutes for an understanding of investor needs and preferences.

Qualified Intermediary (QI) Rule Changes
Thomas A. O’Donnell

Recent examples of U.S. citizens using foreign accounts to hide income have prompted the U.S. IRS to propose changes to the qualified intermediary (QI) system designed to prevent such abuse through enhanced internal controls and external audit procedures.