Asset Management

Our Role as Investment Professionals

We know that investment advice is easy to find these days. But how do you know what type of portfolio is right for you? How do you know when to make changes or adapt the plan? How will you react when markets get scary? Those important questions are why we believe that investing should always begin with a financial plan. Our planning process helps us understand you—not just as a person with financial needs and wants, but as a person with opinions and emotions. What are you saving for? When will you need access to your savings? How do you feel about risk? What beliefs or experiences influence your approach to investing?

By getting to know you, we can pair our expertise in financial planning with all the resources at our disposal to develop portfolios that truly reflect your financial and psychological needs. Our wealth management process focuses on three key objectives: managing your time horizon, meeting your liquidity needs, and minimizing losses. And once your portfolio is built, our top priority is helping you stay invested, regardless of market fluctuations. As Warren Buffett famously said, “The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect.” We’re here to help you navigate both the good times and the challenging moments with as steady a hand as we can offer.

Our Core Beliefs in Investing

We believe how you think and feel about money should drive the financial planning work that we do. In the same way, our investment advice is driven by five simple, but important and non-negotiable core beliefs that we operate under.

1. Investment allocation & Diversification matter – We believe the old adage “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is time tested and true. Loss aversion – where the psychological pain of losing something is roughly twice as strong as the pleasure of gaining an equivalent amount – is a part of human nature, even though markets have been positive in 34 of the last 45 years¹. So, the practice of spreading money around and creating exposure to different types of investments combines the need for return with the desire to limit risk. Over time, we believe that diversification gives you the greatest likelihood of meeting your goals, based on the weight of the evidence in history.

2. Manage Risk Through Three Bucket Theory – NOT market timing. While the S&P 500 has historically offered robust returns (~9% annually), individual investor behavior often leads to lower actual returns (~3.6%)². This underperformance is mainly due to investors buying when the market is doing well and getting excited, only to sell when things take a downturn, missing out on the rebound when the market recovers. To help our clients through these psychological hurdles, we follow the “Three Bucket Theory” - an investment strategy that divides a portfolio into three different "buckets" or categories, each designed to meet specific financial goals and time horizons. The idea is to manage risk and provide liquidity based on when you’ll need access to your money. By splitting the portfolio this way, investors can focus on immediate needs while allowing their long-term investments to grow, without the pressure of market fluctuations affecting their short-term goals.

   
3. Manage Return Through Diversification – NOT Security Selection. Studies show that 90% of investment returns come for asset class selection, not individual security selection³. Translation? We aren’t stock pickers. Investment markets are pretty efficient. And with information so abundant and accessible, free lunches are rarely found in places as competitive as financial markets. That just makes security selection less and less a factor on investment returns compared to asset allocation. So, we prioritize broad exposure to global markets.
4. Independence is essential - We believe in being independent of any specific product or service, and develop strategies based on a well-defined process of review and merit, not company name, affiliation, or any sales agreements. This means that our options are in many ways limitless, requiring us to seek and aggregate information, research, and resources from some of the largest and most well-respected institutions in the country.
5. Adaptability is key. We believe that having access to your savings to meet ongoing and unexpected cashflow needs is important. The world is a fast-evolving place! Hence, we value investing in liquid markets and having the ability to change investment choices without cost or penalty.

What You Can Expect From Us

The choice of whether to hire an investment professional goes beyond just portfolio construction. How plans are monitored, adapted, and executed on matters too! Here’s what you can expect from an ongoing partnership with us.

_{1- https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-management/adv/insights/market-insights/guide-to-the-markets/
2- https://www.financialplanningassociation.org/sites/default/files/2022-05/DL%20SLides_Fishers_13May2022.pdf
3- https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2012/02/16/setting-the-record-straight-on-asset-allocation/}