Investment Management

Investment Discipline

Risk Control
Risk control is at the heart of our service. We use Nobel Prize-winning risk control methods to create retirement portfolios. The goal is a portfolio that will never suffer unacceptable losses throughout your retirement. This goal is achievable for most people, if they have and follow a sound portfolio management discipline.

We believe all risk should be accurately measured, and your portfolio should then be protected against every conceivable risk. This is accomplished primarily through two methods:

1. Investing in special asset classes that have unusually low “correlations” with each other, thereby providing superior diversification.

2. Selecting individual securities that have exceptionally low risk levels.

When your portfolio is designed properly from a risk control standpoint, you will be able to go through one of the many difficult economic time periods our economy may suffer during your retirement without ever losing more than is comfortable for you. The result is a financial plan that can deliver peace of mind throughout what may then truly become your “golden years.”

Competitive Returns
Once we have carefully measured your risk tolerance and have done the asset allocation needed to create a portfolio at the correct risk level, we then select specific investments designed to achieve the highest possible returns.

Our equity-based investments have outperformed the general stock market by a wide margin – some over several decades. This is accomplished by following one overriding principle when buying and selling stocks: buy low and sell high. We follow this principle throughout our portfolio management, and we only invest in equity-based funds that follow this principle.

Our fixed income investments are selected to provide the highest possible yields. We “shop” throughout the fixed income markets to find bonds and related securities offering the highest returns for our clients, at the lowest cost. Through this process, we are typically able to find fixed income securities offering 25-35% higher returns than other choices - at the same risk level.

Our Investment Process
We typically begin with an introductory meeting at which we talk about your financial goals and needs. If it looks as if a managed portfolio might fit your needs, we schedule a second meeting. Between the first and second meeting, we do an in-depth analysis of your current holdings and make a recommended portfolio to meet your specific needs. As needed, we also make detailed retirement and estate plans before completing the portfolio. We then present the plans to you and answer your questions. Most people then take home the materials on the specific recommendations to consider before investing with us.

Although we do not make frequent trades in our accounts, we do active portfolio management. All our accounts are monitored on an ongoing basis. Clients receive quarterly performance reports, and we also meet with clients regularly, depending on their preferred meeting schedule. Typically, we either meet with or speak with our clients about their investments on a quarterly basis.

Fees
We do not charge for any of the planning work we do, including making complete retirement plans. Our state-of-the-art plans give people a chance to see how we think about and will care for their money, but we do not charge until you have decided to invest money with us.

Our fees are based upon both the account size and the specific assets into which we invest your funds. All our approaches share one common feature, which is that they provide greater value than other investment management firms at a lower cost.

For accounts from $100,000-$250,000, our fee for creating and managing a portfolio is 1% of the amount in the account, billed quarterly, . The fees then go down as the account size increases. For accounts from $250,000-$1,000,000 the fee is .75%, and from $1,000,000-$2,000,000 the fee is .50%. For amounts over $2 million, we charge based on specific investor needs. There is no time committment, as we believe a person should be able to leave any investment advisor - with no penalty - at any time if they are not completely satisfied.

Portfolios that include equity index annuities will have lower overall fees than our managed portfolios. This is due to the fact that these annuities don’t charge any fees to your account. Instead, all of the expenses are paid out of the issuing company's general fund.