What are your goals?College funds? New or second home? Maintaining or increasing your standard of living in the future? How much do you want to travel each year? Do you want a new boat? How often can you afford a new car? Do you have enough life insurance? Will the surviving spouse have enough income?
The Retirement Lifestyle Book and online Goal Wizard helps you identify and manage your goals.
If
you buy any asset without first valuing it, you should admit to
gambling. Indeed, any stock picking method that isn't premised
on sober appraisal of intrinsic worth is useless, and ultimately
degenerates into trial-and-error forecasting.
~Warren Buffett
"The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective."
~Warren Buffett
My Methods
To invest successfully over a life-time does not require a high IQ, great business insight or inside information. What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. Your asset allocation plan, which is a component of your financial plan, runs the portfolio.
My methods are based on my belief that when I manage risk with proper asset allocation, the returns will come. The asset allocation section of your plan helps select an efficient, risk-adjusted mix of stocks, bonds and cash most appropriate for your goals and risk tolerance.
Proper allocation has greater importance than selection and timing; just being in the right mix of securities is much of the battle. Most investors ignore their allocation and risk falling short in the future. On your behalf, I regularly rebalance your accounts to your most efficient mix.
I employ formulated strategies or models that I believe represent the best of fundamental analysis with the best of technical analysis. Allocating with large cap, mid cap, small cap, and foreign stocks, I build models comprised of 10 to 50 companies and rebalance about once a year.
The process removes my emotions--and yours--from selection and timing, which is usually a good thing.
Models
have no
emotions. They don't have bad days or arguments with spouses or
hangovers or mortgages. They pay no attention to colorful stories,
fads, press releases or hunches.
I may also utilize in the mix of stocks, bonds, and cash; a combination of exchange-traded funds, unit investment trusts, publically traded REIT (real estate investment trusts), bank CDs, corporate, municipal and government bonds, other general publically traded securities, and cash equivalents like money market funds and Treasury Bills.
I create clear and concise Investment Policies which includes periodically updating your risk profile, rebalancing your allocation, and discussing your situation.
It is my belief that by employing model strategies in a disciplined fashion, and keeping emotions absent from the process, my business will grow as a result of your assets growing. In down markets, my income declines in the same percentage as your assets. That is my way of walking the walk.
Diversification
"Models
beat human forecasters because they reliably and consistently apply
the same criteria time after time. In almost every instance, it is
the total reliability of application of the model that accounts for
its superior performance."
~James P. O'Shaughnessy