Our approach to investing has remained consistent throughout our many years of experience as planners and is summarized below.
- Investment strategy is only as good as its integration with the other elements of a successful financial plan, including asset protection, retirement sustainability, and estate planning.
- Investors achieve long-term success principally by avoiding fundamental errors, not with crystal balls or silver bullets.
- The only investment certainty is risk, or uncertainty.
- One should not expect to beat the market, but instead strive for consistent market rates of return in a low-cost and tax-efficient manner.
- Market timing is costly, difficult to execute, and risky; therefore it should be avoided.
- The most important investment decision is the selection of asset types (i.e., blue chips, foreign stocks, small caps, bonds, cash) and the optimal allocation of your funds among them.
- Proper diversification and disciplined portfolio rebalancing are essential to manage risk and enable long-term investment success.
- Past performance — whether of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, money managers, or asset classes — is of very little predictive value in choosing the best investments.
- Mutual funds and the like are the best vehicles for most investors. Index funds are especially appealing for their low costs, tax-efficiency, risk reduction, and consistency.
- Our job is to provide the structure to monitor your progress and keep you on track to meet your investment goals.
