INVESTMENT STRATEGIES TAILORED TO YOU

Reducing costs, increasing tax efficiency and providing transparency

RETIREMENT PLANNING          TAX STRATEGIES          INVESTMENT ANALYSIS          ESTATE PLANNING          INSURANCE CONSULTING          401(K) FIDUCIARY CONSULTING          BUSINESS AND EXIT PLANNING

OVERVIEW

Many money managers claim to know the “right” investments to “beat” the market. With vast (and expensive) resources at their disposal for investment research, they spend their entire career studying the markets in that attempt. Yet academic study after academic study shows that very few will succeed, yet many will charge high fees trying. Disregarding the sales hype, we design and manage well diversified, low cost and tax efficient portfolios which take the least risk needed to achieve your financial goals.

ASSET ALLOCATION

Asset type selection and allocation trumps picking good managers! 

The greatest indicator of long-term investment performance is your choice of asset classes and their allocation, not the specific stocks or bonds within those classes. This finding underpins our investment philosophy and is commonly known as Modern Portfolio Theory. Over time, we rebalance your accounts as different segments of the market (asset classes) go up and down. This systematically buys assets when they are lower priced and sells them when they are higher priced in a slow, deliberate and tax efficient way.

ASSET LOCATION

Not all accounts are created equal … so don’t treat them that way! 

Retirement accounts like the IRA or 401(k) either give you a deduction upon contribution and deferral of gains to retirement (traditional) or give no current deduction and have tax free growth and distribution (Roth). On the other hand, a non-qualified brokerage is taxed with every bond coupon, dividend or capital gain. Each asset class has particular tax characteristics which work well in a certain type of investment account. If you buy the next Google or Tesla in a brokerage account, you don’t pay any tax until you sell that stock and then only at the capital gains rate (which is lower than ordinary income if held more than a year). If you own a bond paying interest annually, you pay ordinary income each year. In order to lower the overall tax burden of your investments, we segment asset classes across client account types to take advantage of the tax treatment of each account.

INVESTMENT SELECTION

Past performance does not guarantee future results! 

Investors focus on only most recent performance numbers when choosing investments. This approach ignores a multitude of factors. Why did the investment outperform? Did the manager take extra risk? Is the fund manager still there? What benchmark is used to compare performance? History teaches us that very few managers can sustain above average returns more than a few years. The best indicator of success is fees: the higher the fees, the lower the average performance. We scan the investment universe to select low cost, tax efficient and promising funds for you.

RISK ASSESSMENT

Know thyself for better results!

The first and most important step in our investment process is to determine the risk tolerance you have for your investments.  A wealth of evidence predicts that those who do not adequately match their desired portfolio risk to their actual portfolio risk will trade excessively and hurt their returns.  Our Risk Number Methodology quantifies your tolerance for risk, helping us craft a portfolio for you that will avoid the common pitfalls and knee-jerk reactions that ruin too many financial plans.  We invite you to complete the questionnaire below if you would like to know more.

What’s Your Risk Number?

HAVE A QUESTION?

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PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS