TITLE: Tax Efficient Withdrawal Strategies in Retirement
DESCRIPTION: The traditional approach to liquidations in retirement is very straightforward: spend taxable dollars first, and let tax-deferred retirement accounts keep growing, because "no one" wants to pay taxes any sooner than they have to! Except the reality is that there really is such thing as "too much" tax-deferred compounding growth, which makes future retirement distributions so large it drives the retiree into higher tax brackets and results in less wealth! In this session, we explore a more effective tax-efficient withdrawal approach of equalizing tax brackets throughout life, by mixing together taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-free accounts over time, and leveraging strategies like systematic partial Roth conversions and even capital gains harvesting to smooth out tax brackets from year to year and reduce cumulative taxation throughout retirement!
TITLE: The Four Factors That Really Drive Advicer Productivity
DESCRIPTION: As advisory firms grow and add clients, they inevitably reach capacity limitations, because a financial advisor only has so much time to provide advice and service to clients before they just run out of hours in the day or week, and have to hire more advisor talent. Yet given the cost of advisor talent, advisory firms first and foremost try to lift the productivity of their existing advisors to first generate more with the team they've got. In practice, though, firms often don't focus in the right places to actually generate those productivity lifts. In this session, Chief Financial Planning Nerd Michael Kitces of Kitces Research will share their latest findings on the four factors that really drive the productivity of advice-centric firms, including the impact of team leverage, face-time with clients, the affluence of the firm's clientele, and the pricing confidence of the advisors themselves... and in the process, will show how the prevailing focus on AdvisorTech actually plays a remarkably small role in advisor productivity, once advisory firms get the four "big" things right!
This day-long seminar, targeted to CFP® professionals, life insurance professionals and IARs, reviews Maximizing Business Value Through Executive Compensation & Succession Planning, Unlocking Tax Alpha with Direct Indexing, Cost Segregation and Multifamily Housing and Commercial Real Estate as Alternative Investing
This meeting offers a full day of continuing education relevant for all financial planners including investment advisors, financial planners, estate planning attorneys and accountants, etc.
Session 1: Your Money: ReimaginingWealth Through Simple Sketches - Advisor Edition: In thisengaging and thought-provoking session, financial professionals will explore the critical tensions that shape advisor-client relationships and influence financial decision-making. Carl Richards, renowned for his New York Times sketches and behavioral insights, will guide advisors through aninteractive discussion, helping them move beyond rigid planning to a more adaptable, client-centered approach. Usinga selection of 7 to 12 curated sketches, this session will examine key challenges, such as:
● Purpose vs. Goals – How to alignfinancial plans with a client’s deeper values, ensuring long-termengagement.
● Precision vs. Adaptability – Why financial planning should beseen as an ongoing process, not a static document, and how to navigate uncertainty with confidence.
● Facts vs. Emotions – The role of behavioral biases in financialdecision-making and how to use empathy to strengthen trust and communication.
SESSION 2: Be the Best Advisor in Your Client's Toughest Times: When clients cope with death, divorce, retirement,empty nest, or other life transitions, what you say and do in theoffice has more influence on your client relationship than yourfinancial savvy ever did. Learn essential skills forunderstanding and addressing your client’s experience whenthey encounter difficult or emotional life events. Set yourselfapart from all the other advisors who have never been taught, and build long-term loyalty in the process.
SESSION 3: Implementing Alternatives: Following 2008's Financial Crisis it became clear that a liquidity crunch in both stocks and bonds when indiscriminate selling occurred and correlations went to 1, that asset classes, strategies, and sectors of the market that could effectively diversify during periods of turmoil and the unique Monetary Policy that followed for 13+ years could benefit an Asset Allocation. Post-2008, as Wall Street innovates to 'solve a problem for a profit' Fund Families across the industry unveiled their version of Alternatives. In the institutional space, where Pensions and Insurance companies invest to match liabilities to obligations,they found themselves following QE1-3 & Operation Twist in an ultra-low rate environment where bonds with low yields could hardly deliver like they used to. This pushed Institutions to substitute private markets in a big way to a position public market stocks and bonds had previously inhabited. When 2020 and the pandemic unexpectedly struck, institutional investors who had gone to private equity and private credit for returns and yield premium, also realized the benefit of low-volatility on instruments that are not appraised on the same time frame as public market securities and genuinely delivered low correlation to public markets due to the longer term mentality of the investor base. Since this realization and many regulatory changes, the private markets category has mushroomed. The traditional players with household names have offered a more democratized structure of privates for many years, but there's been proliferation new entrants in the form of GPs, structures,and asset classes since 2020, when the space was truly tested in the pandemic and delivered as promised. It sometimes feels like the Wild West when it comes to evaluating Alternatives, so we want to arm you with some rules and laws to abide by as you navigate. As a retail investor many Advisors have mixed experiences with Alternatives because of the depth and breadth of these markets. Calamos' history in risk management andoptions enables us to help Investors make sense of alternatives and implement them with greater understanding to meet their true objectives. This Course will help you expand your definition, define your objectives, and ask the right questions toget the outcomes you and your clients' are seeking across a variety of market climates.
Session 1: Your Money:Reimagining Wealth Through Simple Sketches - Advisor Edition: In this engaging and thought-provoking session,financial professionals will explore the critical tensions that shape advisor-client relationships and influence financial decision-making. Carl Richards, renowned for his New York Times sketches and behavioral insights, will guide advisors through aninteractive discussion, helping them move beyond rigid planning to a more adaptable, client-centered approach.Using a selection of 7 to 12 curated sketches, this session will examine key challenges, such as:
● Purpose vs. Goals – How to align financial plans with aclient’s deeper values, ensuring long-term engagement.
● Precision vs. Adaptability – Why financial planning should be seen as an ongoing process, not a static document, and how to navigate uncertainty with confidence.
● Facts vs. Emotions – The role of behavioral biases infinancialdecision-making and how to use empathy tostrengthen trust and communication.
SESSION 2: Be the Best Advisor in Your Client's Toughest Times: When clients cope with death, divorce, retirement, empty nest, or other life transitions, what you say and do in the office has more influence on your client relationship than your financial savvy ever did. Learn essential skills for understanding and addressing your client’s experience when they encounter difficult or emotional life events. Set yourself apart from all the other advisors who have never been taught, and build long-term loyalty in the process.
SESSION 3: Fraud Happens to Smart People/ David Haas & Laura Reeves
Fraud Happens to Smart People: Helping Clients Prevent and Respond to Scams: Fraud attempts target clients every day, and even highly intelligent and financially sophisticated people can become victims under the right circumstances. Research suggests that 10–20% of Americans lose money to fraud each year, making it a growing risk that financial planners must be prepared to address. In this session, David Haas, CFP® and Laura Reeves, CFP®, will explain why scams are so effective and why anyone can be vulnerable. Through real stories involving clients and family members, attendees will learn how modern scams work and why traditional warning signs are often missed. Participants will also learn practical strategies advisors and their clients can use to help prevent fraud, detect problems early, and respond effectively if fraud occurs. The session will cover reporting procedures, potential recovery options, and the responsibilities of financial institutions when fraud happens.
SESSION 4: Optimizing Client Happiness During Retirement and Advanced Age
Michael Finke, Ph.D., CFP® walks us through the latest research on retiree happiness, highlighting other areas where clients should invest to secure their future life satisfaction. Topics discussed include the impacts of relationships on retiree happiness, cognitive decline’s relationship with investment performance, and the factors associated with having a higher likelihood of overspending or underspending in retirement. Michael provides strategies that advisors can use to ensure that once they help clients prepare for retirement financially, they can also help them prepare to actually enjoy it.
This quiz will include a review of the following articles: Framing Prospect Conversations Around What Motivates Them Today (And Not Their Future Goals) and Discovery Meeting Framework: 6 Questions To Help Prospects Who Are Resistant To Change
This course is intended to help auditors and other finance professionals learn to recognize and address risks of fraud, waste, and abuse in their areas of operation. Practical solutions are offered for weaving fraud detection and recognition into daily processes to maintain process flow while protecting against wrongdoing. The course addresses fraud occurring within the primary processes inherent in any organization, regardless of industry. Students will gain an understanding of how fraud affects every organization, and how to recognize and address the symptoms that will help them become more vigilant.
This course explains the principles of effective fraud investigation and is intended for CPAs, auditors, investigators, and others who want to learn about the fraud investigation process. These materials take you step-by-step, from the logging of initial allegations through to planning and conducting an investigation and presenting the related findings. Techniques, tips, and tales from the trenches abound in this scintillating coverage of an important topic for the business community.
Amid the Hormuz Strait crisis, Fritz Meyer's LIVE IAR CE class this month analyzes the financial economic situation, drawing on over four decades of experience as a thought leader, including time as senior strategist of one of the world's largest investment companies.
The Hormuz Strait crisis is contextualized by an independent economist by reviewing the 1973–1974 Arab Oil Embargo, 1979–1980 Iranian Revolution, 1990–1991 Gulf War, and 2007–2008 Global Commodity Price Spike.