Investment Planning

While many of us don’t realize it, we are constantly engaged in subconscious acts of investment planning. We plan how we can best invest the limited time we have at our disposal. Would the 2-hours free we have be best spent visiting a friend at the hospital or would it be better to work late and try to earn that promotion? We do some longer-term planning too. Does it pay to invest the time and effort for an advanced degree, or can I get to the same place by taking on an additional project for my employer?

So, why don’t we invest the same time planning our investments?

In general, investment planning is important to help you grow assets to provide resources to meet future goals. Simply putting money into a bank will only minimally help us meet our larger goals. Due to costs increasing over time via inflation, we need the growth of our assets to well exceed inflation to not only maintain current purchasing power but also build additional assets for future needs. For example, many people will work and save for 40 years with the hopes of living another 20-30 years from those savings. Thus, we need to base our investment planning on matching our investments to our goals.

The most important aspects of investment planning are risk tolerance and time horizon. If those components are ignored, investors may not achieve their desired results. Riskier assets, like stocks, tend to be more volatile and can require a longer holding period to provide expected results. The stock market can have wide swings in valuation, so investors in stocks should be able to view those holdings as long-term to avoid being forced to sell stocks at an inopportune time. Furthermore, investors in riskier assets should be comfortable with fluctuations in value so that their psychology does not lead them to make the wrong decisions.

Proper planning can help you to make sure that you choose the appropriate investment strategy to meet both your personal risk tolerance and time horizon, thus providing you the opportunity to achieve your short and long-term goals.

Our investment planning service is based on these simple premises: market timing does not consistently work, diversification will help you to create and preserve wealth, and an appropriate asset allocation based on risk tolerance and time horizon will help you to stay focused on long-term goals. Investing is about more than just making money – it is about helping you to achieve your financial goals.

Here’s a preview of what our investment planning services cover:

• Understanding your financial goals: Through our detailed financial planning process, we will help you to define your financial goals and to prioritize them. We will also determine whether the goals are short, medium, or long-term which will help define the appropriate investment vehicles for consideration. We will also take you through a process to help you define your risk tolerance to guide our advice moving forward.
  
  
• Gap analysis: The next step is to analyze where you are today in terms of your savings rate and current investment portfolio. We will help you to determine the necessary amount of additional savings and growth rate required to meet your goals. Sometimes, this phase of our review results in actionable steps that can immediately benefit you – like adjusting your asset allocation (mix of different investments like stocks and bonds), use of tax-preferred accounts, and/or adjusting specific investment holdings.
  
  
• Proposing an investment strategy: Now that we understand your goals, time horizon, and risk tolerance, we can draw-up comprehensive personalized investment strategies that will help you reach your goals. This may be accomplished by adjusting your existing portfolios or proposing new strategies to complement what you already have in place.
  Implementing the plan: The overall investment strategy will provide us with the framework to build a portfolio for you. We start with the framework of an asset allocation (mix of stocks, bonds, and other investment vehicles) based on your risk tolerance, time horizon, and needs for growth within your plan. We then help you to choose specific investments within each asset class to make up the various components of your portfolio. We strive to help you to build a diversified portfolio with necessary exposure to a wide base of sectors in both stock and bond categories.
  
  
• Watching over your investments: We monitor and review your investments, plans, and strategies through changing investment climates. We will periodically rebalance your account if it drifts out of line with your asset allocation strategy. Furthermore, our investment planning approach is dynamic and constantly evolves with your changing circumstances. We guide and advise you on investment plan transitions as you go through life and life-style changes. For example, we actively coach clients as they prepare to transition from working to retirement and from their accumulation stage to their distribution stage. This often involves reducing risk as we begin to shift from asset accumulation to income production.
  
  
• Consult, advise, and counsel: Throughout our ongoing partnership with you, we keep you informed and communicate consistently with you about proposed changes and potential risks and/or opportunities for your investments. We will advise you on necessary changes to keep your investment strategy in line with your overall financial plan.

You and your family work hard to accumulate assets over a lifetime. The hope is that, when the time comes for you to use those assets, they will be there for your needs. Our asset management service is all about helping you manage your financial assets using a prudent and conscientious approach.

Individuals and families depend on the assets they accumulate over the years being able to sustain them later in life – in retirement or in the event of an unforeseen need. However, not everyone has the time to monitor and manage those assets. Even if you do have the time, you might not have the desire, skills, and/or patience to do so. If assets are not managed diligently, you could leave them exposed to various risks that could upset your entire plan.

Our asset management services cover:

• Investment planning: As previously described, we help you to design an investment plan to help you accumulate funds for specific goals. With the appropriate plan in place as a foundation, we can help you to implement that plan and manage assets on your behalf.
  
  
• Building your portfolio: Using the allocation mix agreed upon in the investment planning process, we will build a results-focused portfolio of investments that will help you to meet your financial objectives. We will help you to choose from amongst the wide array of investment products to build a portfolio that will most efficiently and effectively meet your needs.
  
  
• Managing and monitoring the portfolio: Portfolio management requires time, patience, and expertise. We know you have other things to do, such as living your life, so we watch over the portfolio for you to make sure it delivers the objectives you desire. This includes making changes as necessary and rebalancing the portfolio periodically when it drifts out of balance with your target asset allocation.
  
  
• Measuring performance: We track the performance of your assets under our care, and constantly measure how they are performing against your plan specific objectives.
  
  
• Managing risk: Appropriate risk mitigation is an integral part of this service. When there are new risks to the strategy, we consult with you and propose timely and appropriate actions to manage and mitigate them.
  
  
• Ongoing communication: Our service is based on constant and open communication and collaboration with our clients. Through regularly scheduled reporting and conversations, we ensure that your asset management plans are continually reviewed, revised, and updated to meet your changing circumstances.