By Mark Wendell

As safe as houses is an old expression that has new irony for those of us who weathered the Great Recession, when the home mortgage market proved to be built on sand rather than rock, and many homeowners found themselves in foreclosure. As safe as a bank vault is another expression that doesn’t mean the same today, looking back at the banking system’s collapse. As Warren Buffett explains what happened, “To make money they didn’t have and didn’t need, they risked what they did have and did need.”

By Mark Wendell and authorship rights attributed to Craig L. Israelsen, Ph.D. (MD Wendell Wealth Partners reprint by permission from the author, April 2014) Portfolio diversification is a virtue—but it can also be seen as a vice because it produces “average” results on a year-to-year basis.

Consider the annual performance of an equally-weighted 7-asset portfolio vs. the single-asset S&P 500 Index from 1970-2013 (see Figure 1). The blue bars represent the year-to-year returns of the S&P 500 Index and the maroon bars represent the returns of a 7-asset portfolio (comprised of US large and small stock, non-US stock, commodities, real estate, US and non-US fixed income, and cash).

By Mark Wendell

What in the world are digital assets?

Intangible?  Certainly.  Ubiquitous?  Absolutely.  Important?  Immensely.

Your digital assets are items of computerized-digitized text, programming code, or media in electronic form — ones and zeros stored on a device somewhere — that belong to you and must not be reproduced or accessed without your consent. Such assets might have been rare years ago, but as technology has evolved, a surprising amount of the most significant and precious aspects of our everyday life have become digitized.  It makes sense, nowadays, to give as much attention to securing your treasured ‘digitized life’ as we’re accustomed to giving to antiques and heirlooms, real estate, or shares of stocks. We own these digital properties, and therefore we might want to control, add value to, and pass on ownership rights to them, by way of clearly articulated estate-planning instructions.

By Mark Wendell

(Authorship rights attributed to: Stephen Brooks, Charitable Planning Consultant, Fidelity Charitable®)
As we approach year-end, many of us are thinking about all we need to get done between now and December 31st. Compared to thinking about spending time with family and friends over the holidays, organizing our financial and tax situation is not generally first on the list. However, now is a good time to integrate your personal philanthropy into your larger financial plan to potentially increase the impact of your giving and support your favorite nonprofit organizations in 2013 and beyond.

By Mark Wendell

(Authorship rights are shared with Tamara Harper, ESQ.)

There are a variety of basic tools from which you can construct your estate plan, including wills, life insurance policies, and trusts.  It is important to discuss this subject with your investment, tax and legal advisors as the application of these tools can be complex.

By Mark Wendell

Achieving the security and freedom that wealth can provide is seldom a matter of luck. It takes persistence, patience, and focus. It can be a long, arduous journey, one mile at a time, but reaching your destination can mean a better life for you and your family.

By Mark Wendell

Wealth is not necessarily only a matter of money. Sometimes it’s about freedom, love, the attainment of long-held aspirations, sentimental asset ownership, or simply continuity, the sense of security that a change or a loss, inevitable and natural events along the long road of life, won’t set off an out-of-control cascade of sometimes avoidable disruptions and losses.

By Mark Wendell

President Harry Truman once said that he wanted to find a one-armed economist, because the other always answered his questions with, “on one hand… but on the other hand.” “If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion,” said George Bernard Shaw. President Ronald Reagan joked that if the game Trivial Pursuit were designed for economists, it would have 100 questions and 3,000 answers.

By Mark Wendell

Life is finite and infinitely precious.  Eleanor Roosevelt nailed it:  “Yesterday is history.  Tomorrow is a mystery.  Today is a gift.  That’s why we call it ‘the present.’ ”

By Mark Wendell

All of us want to educate our children, save on taxes, get a competitive return on our portfolios, have a successful career, plan a comfortable retirement, and have fulfilling relationships and good health. But beyond these familiar personal aspirations, most clients of financial professionals seldom discuss their deepest wishes, fears, desires, and feelings.