Investing Approach

Our investing process centers around five steps:

1. Assess your goals and circumstances. The investment plan process begins during the Discovery Meeting with a discussion of your financial values and goals, as well as your key relationships, existing assets, other professional advisors, preferred process and important interests.

2. Set long-term investment objectives. Taking into account the long-term nature of successful investing, we set objectives for your portfolio that are appropriate for your willingness, ability and need to take risk, and the investment horizon(s) you identify. These three factors are called the Three Dimensions of Risk.

3. Plan your asset allocation. Because it is so important, asset allocation is the first investment decision. During this process, we decide how much of your portfolio to invest in each of the different investment types, or asset classes, including stocks, bonds and short-term investments, both domestic and foreign.

4. Select your investment approach. With an asset allocation in place, we now select the investment vehicles that you will use to implement your portfolio strategy. Two key investing principles guide these decisions: the importance of diversification and the value of remaining invested.

5. Build your portfolio. Building on the first four steps, we construct a portfolio suited to your needs, goals, and investment horizon and risk attitude. The building blocks for the portfolio are institutional asset class funds, an excellent way to implement a diversified portfolio investment so as to maximize the probability of achieving your goals.

The result of this process is a diagnostic report of your current situation with our recommendations for repositioning your portfolio to maximize your probability for success. In addition to the above considerations, these recommendations take into account portfolio costs as well as the potential tax impact of the restructuring.