Investment Planning

We are trained to build an investment strategy tailored to match your financial goals:

1) Purpose – What is the purpose of the money to be invested, and how will it be used? Will it be used to provide regular income, periodic “big ticket” expenses, or a future major purchase or expense (like a vacation home, or for college expenses)?
2) Time Horizon – When will the money most likely be needed?
3) Risk Appetite – How much risk are you willing to take with the money to be invested, and is your willingness to take on risk aligned appropriately with your purpose and time horizon?

When it makes sense, we believe in “bucketing” your investments based on different monies for different goals, which reflect answers to questions like those listed above. A one-size fits all approach to investing based on risk-tolerance alone is rarely the most efficient way to invest your money when multiple financial goals and time horizons are involved. A customized investment “bucketed” portfolio, based on your unique needs and goals, is designed to help you protect the typical “bucket” goals within your overall portfolio, such as safety, income, liquidity, planned and/or unplanned “big ticket” expenses, growth, or legacy.

Other items of interest related to investment planning:

• We are investment fiduciaries, obligated to serving your needs and best interest first and foremost above our own.
• We have access to some of the most successful money managers and strategists from around the globe, many of which are regularly used to manage the portfolios of large institutions such as corporate accounts, pensions, endowments, and non-profit institutions.
• We have access to non-traditional investment options that go beyond the traditional stock/bond/cash approach.
• We utilize mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and separately managed account strategies that hold your own portfolio of individual, well diversified assets— which of these we recommend for you will depend on what’s best for your specific investment goal.
• We strongly believe you need to know your cost to investing with us. Most frequently we are paid on an advisory fee basis, meaning we are paid an annual percentage of your assets under our management/advice. This means when your accounts perform better our fees do better, but when you don’t, we’ll be feeling the hurt right along with you. In the rare instances we don’t get paid by way of an advisory fee we will tell you (and tell you why), but most importantly we’re going to be transparent about your cost to invest from the very first time we meet.