Our Investment Philosophy

Saving and investing are important to protect your current lifestyle and prepare for the future. For many people this is the most important part of financial planning services. Our philosophy aligns with client goals in the following ways:

Passive Investing

We strongly believe in a low-cost, diversified “passive” approach to investing. This is much different than the typical Wall Street approach taken by most brokers and product salespeople. For a more in-depth discussion, see Active versus Passive Investing.

Prudent Management of Risk

It’s an unavoidable truth that all investing involves some degree of risk. Many people focus strictly on short-term fluctuations in value (market risk), but keeping up with rising prices (inflation risk) over time is equally important. Our task is to help clients achieve their objectives while taking no more risk than necessary. All funds are placed at a large independent custodian to provide ease of management and safekeeping for our clients.

Sound and Justifiable Approach

All investment decision-making should hold up to the most current academic studies, empirical data and every-day common sense. Our investment strategy is an “evidence-based” approach incorporating decades of rigorous peer-reviewed research from top universities and practitioners. There will always be a well-thought out reason and rationale behind everything we do.

Focus on Costs and Tax-Efficiency

Taxes and expenses have an unquestionable impact on investment results. They also happen to be two areas where we have considerable control. As a result, we focus on both intently and strive to minimize their effect. We use a combination of low cost exchange traded funds, mutual funds, and bonds to implement investment strategies.

Asset allocation and diversification

Investing would be quite simple with perfect foresight –simply pick the single investment that will do best in the future. Unfortunately, we all know it’s not that easy. The future is unknowable, and should be treated as such. There are many possible outcomes, several of which are difficult to imagine today. A portfolio should be structured to withstand whatever the future might bring, and proper asset allocation and diversification are the logical ways to approach an uncertain world.

Long-term Focus

We are not market timers or short-term traders, and we make no attempt to predict market tops or bottoms (or even direction). Consider how often forecasts miss the mark in sports, weather and politics – financial markets arguably have as many (or more) variables impacting results, and the likelihood of consistently guessing outcomes and predicting changes is exceedingly low. We believe the best strategy is a disciplined approach to take advantage of the benefits that accrue to patient investors over time.

Valuation matters

Markets can (and do) drift away from a reasonable estimate of long-term “fair value,” and the risk / return trade off can become distorted. When this happens, maintaining a static allocation to an asset class just isn’t logical. Our approach is based on valuation sensitivity – focusing on the long-term investment opportunity available for each asset class, and we will adjust exposures when warranted.

All investments have the potential for profit or loss. Past performance does not guarantee future success.

Contact Us

Phone
(904) 448-5158

Email
[email protected]