Our philosophy

Designing, constructing and maintaining a very specific wealth management plan is at the heart of what we do. Our approach to investing focuses on an intelligent, strategic, balance-sheet-centric asset allocation. We believe that investors who follow a carefully planned set of rules have a higher success rate than those who act on their whims or make frequent changes based on the events of the day.

Asset allocation

We believe the most important factor influencing the performance of a portfolio against its objectives is the way money is allocated among major asset classes of equity, fixed income, real estate, alternative investments and cash. In our relationships with clients, we treat such decisions seriously and review them carefully.

Focus on total return

We believe in a total return approach to equity investing. Although dividends and dividend growth are important, an over-emphasis on portfolio yield can be detrimental to long- term performance. Our approach focuses on a combination of income and capital appreciation. Total return investing views all of the assests in the portfolio as fungible. Money required to fund or supplement your living expenses may come from interest income, dividends or proceeds from rebalancing. This allows us to better manage risk and be more tax- considerate. For accounts already under our stewardship, an understanding of our philosophy is critical for understanding our portfolios and performance. We believe our method differentiates us from other service providers, and helps define what your true investment goals are and how we plan to help achieve them.

Fee discipline

Fees are anti-cash flow. We see fee management as an area of control where we can enhance return by limiting the negative impact of these expenses. We exhibit our fee discipline in a number of ways across client portfolios through the use of individual securities, product screening and rigorous review of managed strategies. Our mission is to help you keep your expense to a reasonable level.

Transparency

When crafting and executing an investment portfolio, we purposely design our strategies and investment selection process around the idea of transparency. Transparent portfolios, in our view, utilize components and ideas understandable to our clients. Furthermore, we select components of our strategy that exhibit a straightforward fee profile in the effort to avoid hidden costs that erode client performance. We know this process and commitment to transparency as our “Wall Street Journal Test:” If anyone were to publish our strategy on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, would we and our clients be proud of what is shown?

If anything you've read above spurs an investment idea or you would like to set up a consultation, please contact us.