Investing Principles

When choosing a financial advisor, sharing a common set of principles and beliefs is critical to a successful relationship. As such, below are our investing principles for your review.

Purpose —> Plan —> Portfolio

Before establishing a portfolio, the initial focus of our conversations will be to understand your purpose (and goals) for investing. Next, we will develop a financial plan to guide the development of a portfolio in pursuit of your purpose with each of the following principles in mind.

INVESTING PRInCIPLES

We Align Your Investments with Your Time Horizon:

We believe owning a diversified portfolio of long-term investments (equities) for your long-term objectives and short-term investments (cash, bonds) for short-term objectives will offer the highest probability of achieving your goals. This alignment of investments may seem simple, but it is critical to investing success through all market environments.

We Expect Volatility:

We expect bear markets as they have historically occurred about once every 3-4 years. However, despite these events, over the last 65 years, the market (as represented by the S&P 500) has grown by almost 100X, excluding dividends. The only thing that was required of investors to earn that return was simply to stay invested.

We Stay the Course:

Given the performance noted above, it’s clear that investing success is much more about time in the market than timing the market (i.e., the best portfolio in the world will not work if you can’t stick with it). As such, we do not chase performance or fads. Nor do we react to the latest market catastrophe or news du jour, as those actions invariably introduce new, unnecessary risks to your financial plan. If your portfolio is aligned with your goals and time horizon, there should be few causes for change.

We Prepare, We Don’t Predict:

Because we expect bear markets (we just don’t know their timing), we purposefully prepare mentally and financially for whatever may come next through relevant ongoing communication and easy-to-understand financial strategies so you can feel comfortable standing by your plan during stressful times.

We Manage and Minimize Expenses:

We believe in low-cost, tax-efficient investing and that most investors should favor low-cost index funds. This is in direct contrast to many financial advisory firms that target high-net-worth individuals with trendy alternatives to traditional investing. Instead, we recommend and use simple products that provide exposure to the great companies of the world and their earnings streams.

We Follow Our Own Advice:

As the steward of many of our clients’ complete financial lives, we invest the same way we recommend our clients invest.

We sincerely hope that through our collaborative planning and principles-based investment philosophy, you will feel encouraged to tune out the media and be free to enjoy life a little more.

Investing Principles