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

Everyone should take time to go through a periodic estate plan review with a qualified professional financial advisor.  This process may be simple or very complex, depending upon the nature and size of an estate.  Many potentially perilous tax and/or penalty situations for the inheritor of Individual Retirement Account (IRA) assets can result from a lack of vigilance either when the IRA owner sets up the account or in the way the beneficiary accepts the assets.

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.

By Mark Wendell

(Source: All definitions extracted from www.investopedia.com)

Wall Street is replete with vocabulary that seems to be a mysterious foreign language. With an education objective, listed below are some important concepts frequently used by Advisors.