Investment Advice and Philosophy

It is virtually impossible to do the necessary due diligence on the thousands of mutual funds on the market today. We feel recommendations made by consumer magazines and other public information sources are relatively weak and inherently subject to the effects of an efficient market. In other words, by the time you hear about it, it’s too late. Their recommendations are mostly based on how well the investments have done in the past, not how well they’ll do in the future.

We believe our clients' long-term interests are best served by making decisions based on careful fundamental research, rather than pursuing what is temporarily popular and might be superficially appealing. Additionally, it is important to invest our clients’ money in funds that have low fees and are tax efficient.

We use the services of Litman/Gregory Analytics, LLC as our investment strategist and research source. Litman/Gregory Analytics, LLC, leverages the expertise and research access of it’s Litman/Gregory affiliates to provide us the highest quality research and information available in the industry today. Our portfolio models, based on Litman/Gregory’s research, incorporate tactical asset allocation using active managers. Additionally, we have passive model portfolios for investors whom we feel should implement our models with ETFs and/or index funds rather than active managers. These models may include institutional or advisor-only share classes of funds when appropriate. For high net worth clients, we can provide Separate Account Management as well as alternative investments.

Strategic Approach versus Tactical Approach

A strategic approach involves setting a long-term target allocation, and maintaining this weighting on an ongoing basis. Financial markets are quite efficient—most assets are priced fairly (based on all publicly available information) most of the time. It is difficult to “out-smart” the market. However, the market occasionally offers investors exceptional opportunities. This is why we use a tactical approach.

A tactical approach typically extends a strategic approach by providing for overweighting or underweighting asset classes as perceived market opportunities arise. Market opportunities arise from long-term trends, secular factors, demographics, technological developments, global political developments and other important issues. When our fundamental research allows us to gain a high degree of confidence that a given class of investments is highly undervalued we will overweight that class.

Call us for a no-charge initial conference. We will discuss your financial situation and determine how we can help you.