We believe it is essential for any successful investment process to begin with the goals, objectives, and dreams of the investor which the process is seeking to serve. Every investor is different, but we find classifying objectives across four broad categories provides clarity with regard to how financial wealth may align with goals and dreams:

• Protect – safefy of principal, liquidity
• Keep Pace – provide income, sustain lifestyle
• Outpace – growth toward a long-term goal
• Aspire – address personal goals, seek a higher level of wealth

Categorizing objectives creates the foundation of an effective Wealth Allocation Framework.

Our Core Objective-based Portfolios are designed to serve as tools which can be combined or used individually by investors to build their Wealth Allocation.

Investment Process

The construction of our Core Objective-based Portfolios begins with the work of our Investment Committee, which meets weekly. In addition to our own research, we value the input of Research Partners and the investment portion of our Advisory Board.

We seek to gain a big picture view of the financial markets through the three components of our Market Health Analysis:

• Economic Outlook – what is happening in different area of the world?
• Valuation – which investments are cheap and which are expensive?
• Technicals – how are investors actually behaving?

Each portfolio is divided into five key asset categories, each having a different primary risk exposure:

• High Quality Fixed Income (bonds) – interest rate risk
• Credit (high yield bonds) – credit/default risk
• Stocks – market risk
• Real Assets – long-term inflation risk
• Dynamic – manager/strategy risk

We seek to diversify not only asset classes, but also risk exposures within the volatility bands specified for each portfolio.

The primary tools we use to construct portfolios are no-load mutual funds. We seek managers which have a robust, repeatable, and understandable process. We have a thesis for every fund we put in a portfolio, and verifying our thesis is a key part of our sell discipline.