Wealth Management

Core Philosophy
Through the years we've learned a valuable lesson when managing money; “the anxiety of losing money far outweighs the euphoria of making money.” This adage, while simple, is how our advisors strive to manage money. They're aware that losses have a much greater impact to financial security than gains. This is why they stress risk-adjusted returns and diversification*. Our advisors' goal is not to beat the market, but rather to construct, implement, and monitor target portfolio allocations to assist clients with living more financially secure lives.

Research
Active research of market trends, valuations, investment styles, and economic developments influence our day-to-day portfolio management decisions. Our advisors take a fundamental approach to research and look for portfolio managers that concentrate on risk-adjusted returns. They also use technical analysis, such as price and volume, as a secondary consideration when making changes within a portfolio.

Strategy
After extensive research, our advisors create target allocation portfolios that may include mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), stocks and bonds that are consistent with a client's goals, risk tolerance and time horizon. They do not believe in market timing, but do actively manage portfolios and make subtle adjustments in an attempt to add value. They emphasize asset allocation and diversification in an attempt to minimize risk. We also stress the use of “diversifiers” in the portfolios, which are funds that have low or negative correlations to the US equity markets. Diversifiers come in all different shapes & sizes, but may include precious metals, commodities, long/short funds, bear market funds and currencies. These funds are primarily used to mitigate downward pressure on our portfolios during challenging markets*.

Composition & Fees
Portfolios are comprised mainly of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and no-load mutual funds, but may also include other investments such as stocks and bonds. There are minimal (or no) transaction charges when buying or selling funds to create our portfolios, which provides added flexibility when managing money. As compensation, an annual fee is charged based on a percentage of the value of a client's account.

Monitoring
Continuous monitoring and assessment of our investment funds and portfolios are fundamental to our advisors' investment management process. They assess the performance of each fund relative to its category and the role it plays in the overall portfolio. If a fund no longer meets the objectives due to poor performance, manager change, style drift, etc., our advisors won't hesitate to replace it after careful research and analysis.

*While there is no assurance that a diversified portfolio will produce better returns than an undiversified portfolio, and it does not assure against market loss, a diversified portfolio may reduce a portfolio's volatility and potential loss.