Firm Philosophy
Firm Philosophy
Through our broad range of investment services, strategies and access to unaffiliated investment managers, we provide personalized, objective, strategic, and tactical investment guidance.
Our Firm’s View
Our firm was founded on the investment services premise that investing should be rooted in a fundamental understanding of how economies and financial markets function. We believe that dependable portfolio preservation and growth can be best achieved through embracing the relationship between asset class returns and evolving economic conditions. Most investor portfolios experience large and frequent losses because they are not balanced to different economic outcomes. For example, the traditional equity-oriented portfolio has a concentration of its risk in equities, an asset class that depends on good growth environments. As a result, most investors experience losses when there is an unexpected slowdown in growth. We believe investors can more reliably meet their investment objectives by holding a mix of asset classes, balanced to perform well in any economic environment. Such portfolios can help grow wealth steadily over time without fear of catastrophic losses. We recognize that making money during strong economic climates may be easier than in periods of economic weakness. The challenge comes in protecting clients during severe market downturns. We therefore spend much of our time analyzing what may go wrong and designing portfolios that can withstand negative surprises while determining investment objectives, liquidity requirements and risk tolerances.
Active vs. Passive
Our portfolios include a carefully selected mix of active and passive strategies, helping to ensure low cost and tax efficiency (when applicable). We recognize that many active managers do not beat their benchmarks net of fees over multiple cycles. We use active management only where we believe there is reliable, demonstrated skill.
Due Diligence
We intentionally minimize the number of clients we accept to allow sufficient time to build long-lasting partnerships, construct highly customized portfolios and maintain an exceedingly responsive service model. Likewise, we are extremely careful when allocating capital to investment managers on behalf of our clients. As a result, we work with a select group of managers with whom we have developed strong, long-term relationships over the years. Our trust in them is earned through time-tested due diligence as well as their risk adjusted performance.
The Benefit of Skepticism
We design portfolios for stability and consistent absolute returns. We believe this objective is best achieved by having an asset allocation that is balanced to different economic outcomes, ensuring that some portion of the portfolio is performing well no matter the economic climate. Above all, we want to minimize the risk of negative surprises by approaching all investment decisions with a rigorous research process and a healthy degree of skepticism. This mindset could potentially help us to protect our clients’ portfolios during significant market downturns.
Impactful Research
To fuel our deeper understanding of ever-evolving market conditions, we are hyper-focused on finding the best insight available. Our investment platform provides us access to some of the smartest investment minds in the industry. In addition, our long-standing relationships with other research organizations positions us to glean superior insight and gain valuable exposure for our clients. We know how to identify impactful research, then distill and interpret it to provide sound, straightforward advice.