4-minute Money Ideas

When Should You Give Trading Authority to Your Children? By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® Recently, one of my clients had a serious fall at home, breaking his hip, and ended up in the hospital. As a result of his injuries, it was clear that he could not deal with his finances for the foreseeable future and had to hand over trading authority to his daughter.  As this all happened suddenly, decisions had to be made in a hurry, leading to mediocre results. If my client, who is over 80, had agreed to hand over trading authority earlier, he and his daughter would have been better prepared for a scenario where he could no longer make financial decisions. What is trading authority? A trading authority form is a legal document that allows someone else to act as your agent over your account. Your agent can have limited trading authority, which means that he can make transactions on your behalf but not withdraw any money, or full trading authority, which means he can make withdrawals from your account. A trading authority i