Investment Advisory &
Financial Planning

Fiduciary Standard & Fee Only Advice

As fiduciaries, we are required to always act in your best interest
Trained to advise, not sell
Fee Only – means only clients pay us, we don’t take any commissions or sales related incentives
No large institutions hanging over us, influencing how we work
Changes or trades must be reviewed and approved by the client prior to transaction

Investment Advisory

We give advice and manage investments for clients. We start by putting together your personal balance sheet and discussing your long-term goals. We take time to understand your history and experience with investments, especially your attitude towards risk. We will create a customized portfolio of simple and well diversified investments matching your needs and goals. Our goal is to minimize any short-term regret you may experience from time to time due to the volatility and nature of markets. We don’t want you up all night with worry. We also don’t want you to completely succumb to fear, like buying green bananas. The financial markets are too often categorized by investors and journalists in the range of totally fabulous, to completely worthless. Our approach and discipline filters out the noise and confusion.

Client Meetings

Clients can schedule a call or meeting at any time, for any topic. On at least a biannual basis, we meet with each client to review their investment performance, cash flow, tax planning and other goals. The meetings usually last about 90 minutes. Our reports are always one page, our action items clear and concise.

The 7 Pieces of Investment Performance

Have you looked at your investment statement lately? Do they even tell you how you did? We’ve found the simplest way to measure your performance accurately is by answering 7 questions.

What do you have at the end of the period?
What did I start with and how much cash did I add or subtract?
What was my performance in dollars?
What was my performance as a percentage return on investment?
How do I compare to the overall market?
What is my allocation of stocks and bonds?
How did my individual investments do on their own?

Anyone can measure their investment performance on their own. Partnering with an advisor is the next logical step. According to Vanguard’s February 2019 study, advisors and their framework can add about 3% in net returns for clients. Advisors who employ good tax planning can also add more to net returns.

Pontera for Held Away Accounts

We can also manage your 401K held away from your custodian without making you do all the work! In the past, clients had to provide us periodic statements and reports on available investments in the plan. Information and research was not always publicly available. After the meeting, clients would then have to put through any changes on their own.

Now, our partnership with Pontera allows us to connect to your account through a secure portal, see values, research available funds, and rebalance your plan on your behalf. We can also adjust how your future contributions are invested. Pontera uses bank level security. So we cannot change your contribution amount, address, or beneficiary.