Ways to assess if your giving is making the impact you'd like.

As the amount of wealth that women control continues to grow, we take a look at how their approach to planning and giving is different.

Someone in your family has asked you to be their healthcare proxy. This means they are entrusting you to make legally binding health-related decisions about their medical care in the event they are unable to make those decisions themselves. While it’s an honor to have a family member put this trust in you, you might not know what it actually involves.

When families take the time to talk about long-term plans, it gives everyone the opportunity to make sure things are up to date. Missing or outdated beneficiary designations can steer...

The midpoint of the year can be a good time to step back and assess your financial goals to make sure you're still on track and given any changes in the economy and markets as well as your personal situation.

Investors tend to buy high and sell low. They tend to become greedy when markets are approaching a high, and they become fearful when markets are at, or near, low points. Studies show that the more frequently investors check their portfolio performance, the more they trade, and the worse their performance becomes. In fact, investors in liquid investments (such as stocks) tend to sell quicker than investors in illiquid investments (such as real estate) because the pricing is readily available. How can you avoid falling into this trap? Should you just buy and hold? Set it and forget it?

Certainly, the flow of funds into passive investment vehicles is indisputable. Investors have added nearly $1.3 trillion to passive funds over the past three years, while more than a quarter trillion dollars has exited actively-managed funds over the same time period. Investors clearly have accepted the narrative that passive investment vehicles, due to their low cost structures, outperform actively-managed investment vehicles, on average.