1) Be Totally Transparent. The investments held in our asset allocations are either traded on the major exchanges, or they are registered investment companies (mutual funds).
2) Impose No Lock-Ups or Penalties. Our belief is that we want to continue to work with our clients as long as they want to work with us. If a client needs cash for some other purpose, most investments can be liquidated quickly, with funds available for withdrawal in three business days.
3) Keep Costs Down. We typically charge a comprehensive and competitive advisory fee to manage the overall relationship. This fee includes setting an Investment Strategy, choosing an appropriate Asset Allocation, Custody of the Assets, all transactional costs and any additional work done in budgeting, planning, wealth management and more. Because we are not compensated by which products we use in these portfolios, we can focus on keeping costs down with a goal of optimizing net returns to the client.
4) Eliminate Conflicts of Interest. No proprietary products, we use third-party managers and low-cost solutions with the clients best interest as the basis of every decision we make.
5) Focus on Manager Experience. While we believe that overall Asset Allocation affects a large portion of both risk and returns, we may hire professional managers to manage specific portions of a client’s portfolio based on that client’s needs, goals and objectives. We calibrate our searches in accordance with a given portfolio manager’s experience and performance. We tend to prefer track records of at least ten years.
6) We believe that a Tactical Overweight or Underweight to certain asset classes can have a meaningful impact on performance.
1) We believe that markets are moving in shorter investment cycles with more volatility than in the past.
2) Depending on the outlook for U.S./global economies and markets, we make top down allocations among stocks, bonds, alternative investments and cash around the globe.
3) The number of investment choices and asset classes available to the public has increased substantially over the last 10 to 20 years. This gives us the ability to invest in any market that we believe offers a high potential of return.
4) We believe that there must be a process for reviewing allocations and holdings in order to take action to protect principal if a downturn begins. By reducing downdrafts, we believe our clients’ goals are more easily met.
