Asset allocation
How your money is divided between our growth strategies and steadier holdings such as bonds, set from your plan and your drawdown limit.
Grow and protect what you've built
Investment Management
Long-term growth with short-term risk management: invested while the market is healthy, defensive when it turns.
The short version
We start with your financial plan, then build the portfolio to serve it. Our investment philosophy runs through a small set of strategies, and how your money is split between those strategies and steadier holdings, such as bonds, is your asset allocation.
The growth portion is where we work differently. We manage it tactically, so it does not have to stay fully invested all the time. While the market's trend is healthy, it stays invested to grow. When the trend breaks down, it gets defensive.
Where we start
We start with how much you could stand to lose
Labels like conservative, moderate, and aggressive say little about what you will live through. The measure that does is drawdown: how far your account falls from its high point before it recovers. So that is the number we set with you.
We set it in dollars, because that is how a loss feels. If your portfolio is worth $500,000, could you watch it drop to $425,000 over a few months and stay with the plan? What about $350,000? The point where you would want out is your limit, and we build the portfolio with that limit in mind.
A decline looks manageable on a chart. In your own account, it is when people are most tempted to abandon a plan. The same loss also weighs more as retirement gets closer and there is less time to earn it back.
How the growth portion is managed
We follow the market's trend, not the headlines
Headlines and forecasts are noise. By the time a story makes the news, prices have often moved already. Our process reads the market through technical signals and responds to what it is doing, rather than to what anyone predicts it will do.
The process is simple to describe: identify the trend, judge whether it is healthy, and act when it changes. Following it consistently on your own is exhausting, which is why we run it for you. You are not left making those calls in the middle of a bad month.
In a broad sell-off, most investments tend to fall together. Cash is the one holding that does not, which is why our process can move to cash, and hold nothing but cash in the growth portion if conditions keep getting worse.
When the trend is healthy, the growth portion of your portfolio stays invested. The market is the most powerful wealth-building tool most people will ever have, and while it is working, our job is to let it work.
Nobody can predict markets, and this process does not try to. No process sells at the top and buys at the bottom. The aim is to come through the bad stretches with enough intact to keep compounding.
What this covers
What the work includes
Portfolio construction
Whether the goal is growth, preserving what you have, or turning assets into income, the portfolio is built for it.
Risk management
Our approach builds in stop-loss mechanisms in an effort to mitigate drastic swings in your portfolio.
Taxes in the portfolio
Rebalancing and tax harvesting, handled with an eye on what you keep after taxes.
How it works
The sequence
- 1
Investment assessment
We discuss your objectives and set your drawdown limit, the most you could see your portfolio fall and still stay with the plan. Then we build an investment plan that follows from your financial plan.
- 2
Portfolio construction
A personalized portfolio built around what you are trying to achieve.
- 3
Monitoring
We watch the portfolio and the conditions around it, and make adjustments as needed to stay aligned with your goals.
- 4
Reporting and explanation
You are kept updated on an ongoing basis. When something changes, you will know what changed and why.
Our strategies
Matched to the stage you are in
Wealth Creation
Long-term growth potential
Our wealth creation strategy focuses on the long-term growth potential of leading US-based equities. We look across the market to select a diverse range of leading stocks and ETFs that we believe have long-term growth potential.
Selections are based on relative strength and innovative growth potential over a longer investment horizon. The approach aims to offer the benefits of diversification alongside enough concentration to participate in growth opportunities.
Wealth Preservation
Protecting what has been built
Our wealth preservation strategy seeks to preserve wealth in volatile markets. It is dynamic in nature and can move to cash when the market exhibits negative signals.
Guided by technical signals from the market combined with decades of hands-on investment experience, the approach focuses on growth while the market trends upward and on preservation when it is in a downtrend. It was created to help investors avoid major market downturns while still participating in the rebounds that follow.
Income Generation
Turning assets into a paycheck
Our income generation strategy is an equity-based strategy that seeks to generate income for the long term. We incorporate Social Security and pension-based income when considering how income needs are met.
With this strategy we can use a systematic withdrawal approach, taking profits and capital gains as income rather than relying on a dividend approach. Our Tax Smart Retirement Paycheck work shows when and where money should be drawn from to be most efficient.
Common questions
What people ask about our approach
If you can watch your portfolio fall by half and stay the course, a low-cost index fund may be all you need. Twice this century, from 2000 to 2002 and again from 2007 to 2009, the S&P 500 lost about half its value or more. If a decline like that would change your plans, a portfolio that can get defensive is worth a conversation.
It can. A tactical process may miss the first part of a rebound, or buy back in above the price where it sold. We accept that trade-off because the aim is to avoid riding a long decline all the way down, and we tell you when the portfolio moves and why.
We tell you. When the process moves your portfolio, you hear from us about what changed and why. Your statements and trade confirmations also come directly from the custodian that holds your account, so you can always see exactly what you own.
Important disclosures
The strategies described on this page are general descriptions of our investment approach. They are not offers of, or recommendations to purchase, any specific security or strategy, and they are not tailored to any particular person.
Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. There is no assurance that any strategy will achieve its objective, avoid losses, or outperform any index or alternative approach. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.
Dollar amounts on this page are hypothetical examples, not projections or results. Index figures refer to the S&P 500, an unmanaged index that cannot be invested in directly.
SEC registration does not constitute an endorsement of the advisory firm by the SEC, nor does it indicate that the advisory firm has attained a particular level of skill or ability.
Also part of the picture
These do not work in isolation
Each of these connects to the others. That is the point of managing them as one plan.
A strategy built around you
Financial Planning
A comprehensive plan across your whole financial picture, not just your investments.
Read moreResponsible planning to mitigate tax burdenTax Planning
Planning for taxes all year, not only at filing time, so you keep more of what you've worked to build.
Read moreThoughtful advice for future generationsEstate Planning
Wills, trusts, and a clear plan for what your wealth should do for the people and causes you care about.
Read moreImagine the Possibilities
What could your wealth make possible?
A first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. We will talk about where you are, what you want, and whether we are the right fit. If we are not, we will tell you.