Wealth Management

Effective wealth management is much more than just selecting, buying, selling & monitoring investments. Our version of wealth management integrates & harmonizes the right investments with your goals in a financial plan. These components should fit hand-in-glove & be monitored & managed together. This is goals-based wealth management, not product-focused wealth management. The latter makes decisions based on uncertain financial markets, rather than on your life priorities & goals.

We believe this coordinated approach of goal-centric guidance & investing is critical for optimal results, especially for those that haven't done financial planning and/or don't have either the time, skill, energy or desire to effectively manage their own investment portfolio. We primarily serve clients that need & desire financial planning, plan monitoring with ongoing advice, and investment management.

A financial plan without a supporting investment strategy & appropriate, well managed investments has lower odds of success. Have an assortment of investments with no plan?  Without a plan, investors often build their portfolios bottom-up, focusing on investments piecemeal rather than building a portfolio that best positions them to efficently achieve desired results. Without specific goals for the money, a workable plan to reach them, & an appropriate investment strategy, well, think of a ship that sets sail, with no destination. 

We provide goal planning with customized advice using Wealthcare® to design your financial plan. We invest to real-life objectives, not to superficial market benchmarks. We continually reevaluate the confidence level of meeting & exceeding plan goals, so our clients worry considerably less than those who use the stock market to plan their future. This is a dynamic financial guidance system that evolves as your circumstances & financial markets change.

We focus on custom portfolio design, weighting components of the portfolio in alignment with your goals, risk preferences, & tax situation.  We use portfolio funds that contain approximately 6,000 equity holdings from 45 countries and the highest quality U.S. fixed income assets. Typical annual portfolio investment expense is 0.09%.  

We monitor your portfolio & manage your investments to maintain the recommended investment strategy. We ensure investment risk is proportional to the plan’s requirements, & that the portfolio, in most cases, is designed to help absorb stock market shocks. We use efficient trading of securities to reduce expenses & taxes, which can increase returns & wealth. We can also incorporate your employer retirement plan (401k, 403b, etc.,).

We adjust your plan to your changing life circumstances, goals, & the ups & downs of the markets. We provide ongoing, forward-looking monitoring of the plan. Closely monitoring a custom plan while simultaneously managing your investments allows us to provide the highest quality, continuous advice to get & keep things on track. Why? Unfortunately, a plan & investment strategy is not a set-it-&-forget-it proposition.

"Everybody's got a plan, until they get punched in the face." ~Mike Tyson

Rigidly sticking to a long term plan sounds disciplined. But it can be catastrophic. Life is seldom certain. Financial markets never are. There are far too many unpredictable, uncontrollable events that occur when reality intrudes upon the best laid plans. In nature, survival depends on adapting and evolving. A set of goals in a financial plan & supporting investment strategy, with a 30 - 40 year time horizon, are no different. 

Adjustments are critical to stay on course when uncertainty is high (e.g. unexpected life events, markets misbehaving) or when opportunities present themselves, allowing expansion of goals or current lifestyle. These course corrections make it possible to be comfortably & confidently prepared for an uncertain future while also making the most of your financial resources (and your lifestyle) along the way. Advising on timely adjustments, to keep you on track, is where we shine.

By carefully controlling what we can (e.g. choices about goals, savings, investment expenses & turnover, portfolio risk & rebalancing, insurance protection, minimizing taxes, etc) & modeling that which we cannot (market uncertainty & random returns), we help you manage your wealth to make the most of your one & only life. 

What does that mean? Measurable confidence in exceeding goals you value, without undue sacrifice to your lifestyle, & avoidance of unnecessary investment risk. 

The money we manage represents the lifelong savings, sacrifice, future security, and dreams our clients have entrusted to us. We take this responsibility seriously.

For information on what makes up our wealth management services, click here.