Author: Money Mechanics

(Image credit: Getty Images)Parents who take enormous care in building their estate plan often spend much less time preparing for the emotional impact of revealing it to the family.Adult children learning about a trust for the first time can feel shock, relief and anxiety in a single meeting. Dramatic inheritance “reveals” have even made headlines (paywall). These reactions stem from a simple lack of common understanding. It’s why 70% of wealth transfers fail.In our family office work, we believe wealth transfer succeeds when it’s rooted in three areas: From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger Personal Finance Become a smarter, better…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer is co-chief executive and head of performing credit at OaktreeInvestors are justifiably concerned about some of the issues that have been raised about private credit in recent months. Rising impairments, questions over valuations, the use of leverage, liquidity mismatches, software exposure in an AI-driven world, and refinancing risks are all real issues.But the current debate risks conflating multiple factors to reach overly broad conclusions. It’s worth separating the fundamentally sound concept of private credit — tailored, non-bank lending — from…

In-brief analysis April 1, 2026 Data source: U.S. Census Bureau After four years of growth, U.S. coal exports decreased by 16 million short tons (MMst) in 2025, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Exports totaled 93 MMst in 2025, compared with 108 MMst in 2024. Thermal coal exports fell by 18%, and metallurgical coal exports fell by 11%. The decrease in U.S. coal exports largely reflects a 92% decrease in exports to China in 2025 compared with 2024, after China imposed a 15% additional tariff on imports of U.S.…

If you’re thinking about selling a business in Colorado, I’d approach it as a positioning exercise first and a transaction second. After writing about financial deals, private businesses, and buyer behavior for more than two decades, I can tell you this much: owners usually leave money on the table long before the listing ever goes live. They do it through messy books, vague growth stories, owner-dependent operations, and unrealistic pricing. Colorado can be a strong market for good businesses, but buyers here still want the same thing buyers want everywhere else: clean numbers, low friction, and confidence that the business…

SiFive, a company founded in 2015 by the UC Berkeley engineers who created an open source chip design, has landed a $400 million oversubscribed round that values the company at $3.65 billion. This deal is interesting for a bunch of reasons. For one, SiFive’s RISC-V open chip design is based on the RISC processor, not Intel’s x86 or ARM, the two major types of CPUs that currently feed Nvidia’s GPU computer system AI empire. Also, Nvidia was investor in this round, alongside a long list of VCs, private equity, and hedge funds. The round was led by Atreides Management, founded…

This WeekOnce again, developments in the Iran conflict moved markets this week — overshadowing most macro news.The key developments in the Iran conflict this week were that:President Trump said twice that the conflict would end in “two weeks, maybe three.”Iran’s President Pezeshkian said he was ready to end the conflict, providing “essential conditions” were met.President Trump said at different times that reopening the Strait of Hormuz was and was not necessary to end the conflict.Given these signs that both sides are open to a near-term resolution, markets rebounded this week, with the Nasdaq-100® up 4%, while 10-year Treasury yields are…

(Image credit: Getty Images)April is Financial Literacy Month, a perfect time to examine what you might not know about your own finances.According to a Global Financial Literacy Survey, only 33% of adults worldwide demonstrate basic financial literacy, highlighting how common these knowledge gaps are.Even seasoned wealth managers and finance professionals can uncover gaps in their understanding if they look deeper. From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger Personal Finance Become a smarter, better informed investor. Subscribe from just $107.88 $24.99, plus get up to 4 Special Issues CLICK FOR FREE ISSUE Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free Newsletters Profit and prosper with…

(Image credit: Getty Images)Most retirees (and some planners) evaluating a Roth conversion look at the tax bracket table and think, “We’re in the 12% bracket — let’s fill it up.”But in retirement, your visible bracket often isn’t the true rate you’ll pay — and many unintentionally trigger taxes in places they didn’t expect.Here’s the problem: Several tax rules can be stacked on the same dollar at the same time. These rules interact so that one extra dollar is taxed in several places at once, creating a hidden marginal rate far above your visible bracket. From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger…

Welcome to Kiplinger’s My First $1 Million series, in which we hear from people who have made $1 million. They’re sharing how they did it and what they’re doing with it. This time, we hear from a 63-year-old retired woman in Milwaukee who worked in the health insurance industry as a benefit analyst and adjustor. She reports that she earned $50,000 to $65,000 a year, depending on how much overtime she put in. See our earlier profiles, including a writer in New England, a literacy interventionist in Colorado, a semiretired entrepreneur in Nashville and an events industry CEO in Northern…

(Image credit: Bloomberg / Contributor)April is distracted driving awareness month and the safety statistics show that awareness is needed. Despite laws in most states banning the use of phones while driving, distracted driving remains a deadly and expensive problem in the United States.29% of car accidents are caused by distracted driving, resulting in over 3,200 deaths and causing an estimated $395 billion in damages each year, according to a 2024 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).The same report said one of the biggest challenges to addressing the problem is “the breadth of distraction sources and activities available…