We are a fiduciary, independent investment advisor. We will focus on your financial goals, risk tolerance, and investment horizon. Once your initial financial plan is developed and an investment policy statement is agreed upon, we will construct your investment portfolio.
Asset allocation is an investment strategy that aims to balance risk and reward by apportioning a portfolio's assets according to your goals, risk tolerance, and investment horizon. The three main asset classes—equities, fixed-income, and cash and equivalents—have different levels of risk and return, so each will behave differently over time. Asset allocation is the first step in determining the appropriate investment solutions. By diversifying assets among investment asset classes, we balance the tradeoff between risk and return.
Asset allocation is a very important part of creating and balancing your investment portfolio. After all, it is one of the main factors that leads to your overall returns—even more than choosing individual stocks. Establishing an appropriate asset mix of stocks, bonds, cash, and real estate in your portfolio is a dynamic process. As such, the asset mix will reflect your goals at any point in time.
Core and Explore Philosophy
Core and explore is an investment strategy where the bulk of your portfolio (70% to 90%) is invested in core holdings. The remainder of the portfolio can then be used to explore holdings in more specialized asset classes.
We will identify individual stocks and bonds for core portfolios. We focus on quality companies, that generate free cash flow and high return on equity, managed by exceptional people. We believe owning quality companies reduces costs and has potential to increase long-term returns.
Core Equity Selection Process
Top down and bottom up approaches are methods used to analyze and choose securities. We retain industry leading research partners to guide our top down economic forecast.
Top-down is commonly associated with the word "macro" or macroeconomics. Macroeconomics itself is an area of economics that looks at the biggest factors affecting the economy as a whole. These factors often include things like the federal funds rate, unemployment rates, global and country-specific gross domestic product, and inflation rates.
Bottom-up investing begins with research at the company level but does not stop there. Our analysis weighs company fundamentals heavily but also looks at the sector, and microeconomic factors as well. Our bottom-up process can be somewhat broad across an entire industry or laser-focused on identifying key company attributes. We are looking for a deep understanding of a company’s fundamentals.
Fundamental Analysis
We attempt to measure the intrinsic value of a security by looking at economic and financial factors (including the overall economy, industry conditions, and the financial condition and management of the company itself) to determine if the company is underpriced (indicating it may be a good time to buy) or overpriced (indicating it may be time to sell). Fundamental analysis does not attempt to anticipate market movements. This presents a potential risk, as the price of a security can move up or down along with the overall market regardless of the economic and financial factors considered in evaluating the stock.
Technical Analysis
We analyze past market movements and apply that analysis to the present in an attempt to recognize recurring patterns of investor behavior and potentially predict future price movement. Technical analysis does not consider the underlying financial condition of a company. This presents a risk in that a poorly-managed or financially unsound company may under-perform regardless of market movement.
Quantitative Analysis
We use mathematical models in an attempt to obtain more accurate measurements of a company’s quantifiable data, such as the value of a share price or earnings per share, and predict changes to that data. A risk in using quantitative analysis is that the models used may be based on assumptions that prove to be incorrect.
Qualitative Analysis
We subjectively evaluate non-quantifiable factors such as quality of management, labor relations, and strength of research and development factors not readily subject to measurement, and predict changes to share price based on that data. A risk in using qualitative analysis is that our subjective judgment may prove incorrect.
Core Fixed Income
Individual Bond Selection Process
Driven by your investment plan, a percentage of your portfolio may be invested in bonds, or fixed income securities. We use high-quality, intermediate term securities, which typically capture a significant portion of available yield with substantially less price volatility than longer-term bonds. The following considerations are imperative in our fixed income strategy:
- Credit quality risk (Issuer risk)
- Maturity risk
- Interest rate risk
- Liquidity risk
- Taxable versus Non-taxable income
Explore
Specialty Asset Class Selection Process
Where appropriate, we will utilize separate account managers, exchange traded funds and mutual funds. These specialty managers will be used for diversification of investment style. Our multi-style, multi-manager diversification limits risk by spreading assets across top-rated money managers with different investment approaches.
- Small and Mid Cap US Equity
- Developed International Equity
- Developing International Equity
- Real Estate
- Preferred Stock
- High Yield Bond
- Alternative Investments
Cash
We believe holding cash is a decision driven by each client’s needs and will be customized per relationship. We do not believe cash to be an earning asset but is appropriate from time to time in portfolios where alternatives available at the time are unreasonable.