When you’ve made the decision to protect a collection through insurance, you want to be sure that coverage amounts measure up to the value of your items. Determining proper values can be tricky, as so many variables impact a piece’s worth. Given the ever-changing market, values are in constant flux. That’s why professional appraisals are critical, ...
Under the new ASC 606 revenue recognition standard, contracts are the basis of how organizations must recognize revenue. This places significant pressure on your accounting system and financial reporting. In addition to handling contract-related data, it must support revenue recognition and allocation, revenue reallocation, and expense amortization...
It’s not news that revenue is the key indicator of a company’s financial performance and health. What is news is the accounting rules around the recognition and reporting on that revenue is about to change under ASC 606, particularly if you have a subscription-based business that derives revenue from contracts with customers. What’s the big deal? F...
It is normal for different individuals or institutions to make varying assessments of a particular situation. In a sense, this is a fundamental driver of financial markets, making it possible for there to be both willing buyers and willing sellers simultaneously. Differing perceptions may also help prevent, through restraining the growth of a herd ...
Tax reform has created major changes and opportunities for high-net-worth taxpayers, particularly those who are real estate investors and developers. The creation of the Internal Revenue Code section 199A brings a new, advantageous deduction to those in the real estate business. For real estate owners, investors, and developers, the impacts are sig...
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently ruled that a ballot initiative that would have had Bay Staters vote this November to raise the state income on its wealthiest residents is unconstitutional. The Fair Share Amendment proposal, dubbed by some the “Millionaire's Tax,” will no longer appear on the November ballot. For la...
Investors generally dislike uncertainty, and Trump’s unpredictability would seem to be a depressant on investor optimism. Yet the S&P 500 Stock Index has returned about 33% since the 2016 election, confounding the analysts who foresaw doom and gloom in an upcoming Trump administration. While Trump apparently views the stock market as a re...
How can risk executives embrace innovation while preparing for unknown risks such as a self-driving car commandeered by hackers, data analytics software that unintentionally reflects biases, or autonomous weapons that cause accidental casualties? This challenge was explored in the Risk in Review Study of more than 1,500 senior risk executives globa...
Massive data breaches, constant collection of personal data—it may seem like privacy is dead in the digital age. But privacy, security, and trust are increasingly vital and intertwined in a data-driven society. For CEOs and boards, the existential question is less about the future of privacy and more about the future of their own organization...
The 2018 U.S. Trust Insights on Wealth and Worth® study asked nearly one thousand high-net-worth individuals about their approach to building wealth and the extent to which they are using it to achieve their goals and support the causes they care about most. The study found that while wealth provides the freedom to do more, it also brings increased...
It is often thought that financial success comes with a certain level of financial freedom: the freedom to pursue passions, to take risks, to give back, and to make an even bigger impact. In the 2018 U.S. Trust Insights on Wealth and Worth® survey, the results revealed that only half of high-net-worth individuals have a plan to optimize the opportu...
Many institutional investors have long sought to promote social equity through grant making and other philanthropic endeavors. With the field of impact investing maturing, these institutions are now increasingly seeking investment solutions to accomplish the same goal. Yet this effort raises important questions: What is social equity investing? Wha...
While trade finance is among the oldest forms of institutionalized credit, it has only recently become an accessible market for most institutional investors. Providing high liquidity, good return premiums over cash, and a predictable risk profile, it can play a valuable role in portfolio strategy. However, as a fairly new option for most investors,...
Benchmarking is a critical component of a successful investment program; however, measuring private investment performance vexes even the most sophisticated investors. The unique characteristics of these investments—the reporting lag, the long lock-up of capital, and the impact of the J curve, among others—make performance measurement a...
For investors with private allocations, how one incorporates them into the policy benchmark will materially impact the portfolio’s relative performance, making the choice key to informed decision making. In this report, we review various methodologies used and make a series of recommended best practices to follow. In considering the performan...