Investment Portfolios
Individualized investment advice: We offer our clients 5 different risk-based global asset allocation strategies as well as one alternative strategy as part of our portfolio management service.
1. Conservative
(Typically for clients 75 years and older) Most clients in this category are retired but some non-retired younger clients have chosen this portfolio as best suited to their temperament. The primary goal of the portfolio is capital preservation and generation of current income. Over the long run, this portfolio should have smaller "drawdowns" or downward fluctuations but also the lowest investment returns of the five portfolios. This conservative strategy is the most domestically focused of the five global asset allocation strategies.
2. Moderately Conservative
(Typically for clients aged 60-74) These clients are retired or nearing retirement. This portfolio will be very similar to the conservative portfolio above in that capital preservation and income generation are the primary focus but it will assume some additional risk which over the long term should generate a slightly higher investment return.
3. Moderate
(Typically for clients aged 45-59) These clients are generally still working with retirement envisioned sometime over the next 5-20 years. This is the most balanced portfolio of the five. It is designed for long term growth of capital and the generation of some current income. It employs a moderate level of risk.
4. Moderately Aggressive
(Typically for clients aged 0-44) The primary objective of this portfolio is long term growth of capital. As such, this portfolio takes on more risk than either the Moderate or the two Conservative Portfolios above and is therefore subject to larger fluctuations. Current income is a very secondary consideration for this portfolio.
5. Aggressive
(No typical age) This portfolio is only suitable for those whose personal finances are on a very sound foundation. Typically, the clients in this category have homes with no mortgage, college education funds that are fully funded, and retirement assets set aside in less aggressive portfolios. This portfolio is designed to capture as much gain as possible from the financial markets and as such is at risk of outsized losses as well.
6. Opportunistic Flexible Multi-Asset Strategy
(No typical age) This portfolio is only suitable for those whose personal finances are on a very sound foundation. Typically, the clients in this category have homes with no mortgage, college education funds that are fully funded, and retirement assets set aside in less aggressive portfolios.
We anticipate that this portfolio will typically be 0% - 100% long or short many different markets at the same time. The portfolio, however, could go as much as 200% long or short. Some of these portfolio positions will "typically" be negatively correlated and will offset each other and will therefore provide some hedging of the portfolio, thereby dampening volatility. During certain market cycles, such as 1929 - 1932 and 2007 - 2009, when many asset classes tended to correlate 100% to each other, there may be more risk to the portfolio than historical performance would indicate during more normal times.
This portfolio strategy will invest on both the long and short side of many financial asset markets including, but not limited to stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities. It seeks to profit from pricing discrepancies, deviations from the mean or any other mispricings that are historically viewed as a short to medium term opportunity to profit from a reversion to the mean or more normal pricing. This portfolio may or may not provide a non-correlated return versus a traditional stock/bond portfolio. This portfolio, while seeking to profit from short-term or medium-term mispricing of assets cannot guarantee it will be profitable on any given calendar year or other time period.
We anticipate using long and short positions and paired trades in equities, fixed income securities, currencies, commodities, ETFs, ETNs, closed end funds and/or securities of specific companies. The portfolio may employ strategies variously described as "Global Macro", "Market Neutral", "Sector Specific", or "Tactical Asset Allocation" among others and often at the same time as part of an overall strategy. Investors might be best to consider this strategy as part of their overall aggressive portfolio, but not their entire aggregate portfolio as returns could be strongly positive or negative on any given year.
7. Precious Metals and Currencies Strategy
(No typical age) This portfolio is only suitable for those whose personal finances are on a very sound foundation. Typically, the clients in this category have homes with no mortgage, college education funds that are fully funded, and retirement assets set aside in less aggressive portfolios.
This portfolio strategy is designed to capture as much gain as possible from the precious metal and currency markets while providing investors with a non-correlated return versus a traditional stock/bond portfolio. This portfolio, commonly referred to as an alternative strategy is best utilized as a complement to a traditional stock/bond portfolio.
We anticipate that this portfolio will typically be 50%-100% long the precious metal market. However, we can go as much as 50% short or as much as 200% long. We will primarily use gold and silver bullion ETFs and mining equities, but we may also use platinum and palladium bullion ETFs and mining equities. In addition, we may own gold in currencies other than the dollar such as the yen or euro. From time to time, we expect to utilize long and short currency ETFs as stand-alone investments and not as a hedge against precious metals positions. These positions provide us exposure (long or short) to the same forces that drive the currency metals of gold and silver. While we can invest in platinum and palladium because technically they are precious metals we don't expect to be as active in this category because they are more influenced by "industrial" supply and demand forces than the "currency" precious metals.