Is our money invested correctly?
Investment management is an integral part of financial planning, and as such we believe the two should be incorporated together. The investment decisions we will make as a team will be based on your specific financial situation and goals. Our investment process is based on market and behavioral research. We believe stock picking and market timing are speculative. We believe disciplined investing through asset allocation [which diversifies risk across multiple asset classes], reduced costs, and staying the course is the key to successful investing. We believe the markets will produce results over time, and with proper discipline, the investor will capture market returns.
Our Investment Philosophy
Trying to beat or time the market is usually a loser’s game. Behavioral finance has taught us that greed tempts investors to buy at market tops and fear motivates them to sell at market bottoms. Our goal is to prudently grow your assets while at the same time preserving what you have already accumulated. We believe in diversification as a way to minimize risk and capture market returns. There is a science to investing based on Modern Portfolio Theory that was introduced by Harry Markowitz, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics. Bill Sharpe and Eugene Fama [Nobel Laureates] have added to this body of knowledge. Additional research has been developed in the fields of psychology and neuroeconomics.
Our investment philosophy relies on disciplined investing techniques based on extensive academic research that has been empirically validated.
Asset Allocation
Asset Allocation is a process to determine what percentages of your portfolio will be invested in various asset classes [a few examples of asset classes are: US large cap stocks, corporate bonds, real estate, and emerging markets]. Asset Allocation is based on the Nobel-prize winning concepts of Modern Portfolio Theory, which state that through intelligent diversification you can minimize the effects of investment risk. This is because the way you allocate your investment dollars outweighs the potential effects of security selection and market timing. A study by Brinson, Hood, and Beebower determined that 91.5% of investment returns were attributable to asset allocation and only 8.5% of security selection and market timing. We feel that intelligent diversification by diversifying your assets across multiple asset classes will yield returns with considerably less risk.
Our Investment Process
- We will develop an asset allocation that balances your risk tolerance and investment returns that support your life goals and values. We will develop an Investment Policy Statement based on your goals.
- We will diversify your portfolio across multiple asset classes based on your time horizon.
- We will rebalance your portfolio normally on an annual basis.