Why Prudent Investing?
We do not believe that chasing past performance, investing in "hot" new ideas or client's money into the latest new investment product is investing; we refer to that as speculating or gambling. For certain clients allocating a small portion of their investment portfolio to speculative investments can be appropriate. We believe that the largest portion of a client portfolio should be in a well-diversified, prudently structured portfolio. Our Investment Management process walks each client through the process of building their portfolio model based on the following criteria:
Your investment objectives – what do you hope to use your investment dollars for?
Your time horizon - when will you need income, for how long, and in what amounts?
Your risk tolerance - how much volatility can you accept and still feel comfortable?
Portfolio cash flows - will you be contributing to the portfolio over time or taking withdrawals?
What other investments do you own - do you have large positions in company stock or investment real estate, for example? Do you have attachments to any of your current investments (perhaps stock inherited from a loved one)?
What is your current income tax bracket? – you only get to spend what you keep after taxes
Once a client account has been set up, funded and balanced we monitor and benchmark the performance of each portfolio. We provide quarterly reports for each client so we and they can know how they are doing versus financial goals and expectations.
We believe that a prudently constructed, thoughtfully implemented and well monitored portfolio will, over time, best serve the needs of our clients.
Since investing is all about what you keep, not just what you make, we are happy, with the client’s permission, to work with the tax preparers of our clients. We also provide, where appropriate, year-end estimates of capital gains distributions for the purposes of year end income tax planning for client’s taxable portfolios.