Our Investment Approach
Our objective is to generate competitive, consistent returns that meet your goals over multiple market cycles with an emphasis on capital preservation. This is done by focusing on:
Asset allocation
We believe that disciplined asset allocation is the most important factor in your investment success. All portfolio decisions start by weighing what percentage of your money should be invested in stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, and cash. Then within each larger category, how much should be invested in sub-sectors like international or domestic companies, large or small companies and many other unique exposures.
Selection of active or passive management
In general, our bias is to the lowest cost option for our clients which leads to passively managed, exchange-traded index funds. However, in some asset classes, characteristics such as low liquidity, lack of information flow, and/or high trading costs can create meaningful opportunities for talented active managers. We evaluate these factors investment by investment .
Security selection
We strive to only align with quality managers with stable track records of producing consistent results that track to the mandate they have been hired for. We monitor our portfolios regularly to understand not just how well they are doing, but also why and how they are doing it. To do this we keep in regular contact with the management teams as well as utilize third party data to track outcomes.
Rebalancing
To manage money successfully through market cycles one must maintain the asset allocation as pieces of the portfolio move up and down. This volatility provides the opportunity to capture small gains inside the portfolio by selling that portion of the asset class that is above its target and buying into the ones that are currently below. We believe that over time this kind of consistent rebalancing has been shown to improve results.
Tax strategy
Tax loss harvesting is a basic function of quality asset management, but it is even more important to understand the total picture when making buy and sell decisions. As financial planners we understand how your individual income both now and in the future, along with tax law changes, may impact our strategy and strive to make tailored recommendations accordingly.
Experienced, professional, personal service.
Handling your own investments while working with an 800# or on the web by yourself can feel overwhelming. There is lots of jargon to learn and the call to an “expert” is someone who does not know anything about you, and is usually not licensed to actually give specific, personal advice. When we make investment decisions together it is based on our comprehensive, tailored approach. We know you, your family, your goals and what this money is for. You work directly with your advisor.