Our Investment Philosophy

Of all of the areas of financial planning we develop, the one that most people focus on are the investments. They are constantly in motion. They change every day and you may think it natural to watch them more closely than anything else. Our focus is on building portfolios of strategic—or core—positions, then to expand beyond those core holdings with investments that fit into your specific needs for risk and return.    

What We Do and What We Don't Do

What We Do
We practice strategic asset allocation (see below).
We keep your money invested almost all of the time.
We use mutual funds and exchange traded funds almost exclusively because, while all investments have some risk, we feel these are less risky than individual stocks. 
We purchase stocks in a client's account when instructed to do so by the client.
We work with the individual stock positions to build a portfolio that is balanced.
We make changes when another investment or asset class is better or because economic conditions have changed.
We only make changes with the prior knowledge of our clients, unless they prefer us not to.
We manage taxes and capital gains/losses because you get to keep more of what you earn. 

What We Don't Do
We don't recommend individual stocks to our clients because of concentrated company and industry risk.
We don't jump in and out of the market, unless your circumstances unexpectedly and suddenly change.
We don't over react to news stories since time always offsets risk.
We are not market timers and do not buy and sell quickly.

Strategic Asset Allocation

Asset Allocation is our process for looking at the factors that we believe will prove to be an advantage for our clients' portfolios. They include:

Strategic (Core)

Where are we in the economic cycle (expansion/contraction, etc.)?
What are interest rates doing?
Which asset classes are doing well and have prospects to continue to do so?
Which asset classes should we underweight?

Tactical (Focused)

Which selections may be best in any particular asset class?
What investments classes are cycling into favor with the potential to boost returns?
Can we choose a less risky mix while still pursuing your rate-of-return goals?
Which investments are falling out of favor?

Tilting The Playing Field

If your goal is simply to match the return of the market, (we call this having a “level playing field”), you can purchase low-cost investment vehicles without the help of any financial professional and very likely meet your rate-of-return objective. If you want to attempt to out perform the market (“tilt the playing field” to your advantage), that is where we come in. Using Strategic Asset Allocation described above, we attempt to identify the asset classes that are most likely to outperform the market, as well as those that might under perform. We then position portfolios to take advantage of this. 

But, the real work in building a portfolio is in determining the desired asset allocation and not in selecting the fund. A top-performing investment in an out-of-favor asset class may under perform a lesser investment in the right asset class. We strive to find the mix of investments in the right asset classes by examining risk and return, and we have the tools to do this for you.