FAQ

Investment results follow robust risk management. Our Advisors help clients set a risk target for their portfolio. They then build a portfolio that aligns with this risk target.

Each portfolio is constructed by evaluating the full universe of investable options and filtering down to optimal asset class and strategy selections based on proprietary analytics that clarify risk and return drivers.

During your initial meeting and ongoing relationship, our advisors will often revisit what your risk target means. Graphical illustrations show you the returns that level of risk has delivered a) over the long-term, b) in shorter periods that may coincide with your spending rules for instance, and c) in specific market environments (e.g. recessions or interest rate spikes). These may clarify how the investment portfolio might perform while you face stress in other parts of your business.

Our Investment Committee may allocate to active managers if we believe stock selection can be impactful. Sometimes, the dispersion between the top 25% and bottom 25% of a given market segment’s equity managers is significant, which indicates to us we can add value with a manager selection process.

The Investment Team applies processes tested in academia to identify managers most likely to outperform: ours begins by filtering the universe down with statistical tools to managers that have demonstrated unique skill and concludes with a decision to hire or not based on qualitative analysis of that curated list.

Managers are monitored the same way and will be fired if we see the unique skill indicators diminish or they make changes that fail our qualitative criteria. If the opportunity for stock selection to add value isn’t there, we pivot to own low-cost broad market exposure through ETFs.

We’ve observed that successful investing is goal-focused and planning-driven, while most of the failed investing was market-focused and performance-driven. Another way of making the same point is to tell you that the most successful investors we've known were acting continuously on a plan—tuning out the fads and fears of the moment—while the failing investors we've encountered were continually and randomly reacting to economic and market "news."

Current events in the economy and the markets are in that sense distractions of one sort or another. For this reason, we make no attempt to infer an investment policy from today's or tomorrow's headlines, but rather align clients' portfolios with their most cherished, long-term goals.

We don't forecast the economy, make no attempt to time markets, and cannot—nor, we’re convinced, can anyone else—consistently project future relative performance of specific investments based on past performance. In a nutshell, we are planners rather than prognosticators. We believe our highest value services are planning and behavioral coaching—helping clients avoid overreacting to market events both negative and positive.

Our essential principles of portfolio management in pursuit of our clients' most important goals are fourfold.

1. The performance of a portfolio relative to a benchmark is largely irrelevant to financial success.
2. The only benchmark we should care about is the one that indicates whether you are on track to accomplish your financial goals.
3. Risk should be measured as the probability that you won't achieve your financial goals.
4. Investing should have the exclusive objective of minimizing risk to the greatest extent possible.

Concerning our investment committee, we and our clients benefit from our investment committee meetings and consensus decisions on portfolio allocations. Our investment committee’s mandate is to help our clients make good decisions and capture excess returns over the long run. It is our job to sort through the flood of new ideas, the constant noise of the news cycle, and varying research updates – all to help find solutions that give you the best chance of realizing your goals.

A big part of successful investing is avoiding mistakes, and our committee’s framework (multiple advisors, opinions, and experiences) reduces the opportunity for performance chasing or reactionary moves while highlighting our best ideas. Equally important, this framework emphasizes a patient process and long-term mindset.