Investment Philosophy
I am not in the market timing business. You hire me to protect your portfolio, not to gamble with it. Your success is based on reaching your goals – not on beating the market or an index. The reality of investing is that nobody can control or consistently predict the stock market or the economy. The real risk of retirement planning is not losing your money, it's outliving it. If we want the longer-term return of stocks, we have to have the patience to accept the shorter-term volatility. It's a package deal.
Unfortunately, the average investor not only underperforms the market but also underperforms their own investments because of their own destructive behavior. The average investor will speculate at the top of the market, or panic at the bottom, or under-diversify their portfolio, or even over-diversify their portfolio. They will speculate instead of invest, or will invest for yield instead of total return, or they will simply say, "This time it's different," when in fact it rarely ever is. The dominant factor when it comes to real life investment returns is not investment performance, but investor behavior.
My job is to talk you out of doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. The pickup in return from not making the usual investor mistakes is considerable, with some studies showing the average investor loses as much as 2/3 of their investment return due to destructive behavior. The cost of making one of those mistakes is exponentially more than the cost of hiring me to help you avoid making it.
Over the long run the financial markets are relatively efficient and I invest accordingly. This includes using low-cost index and mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and occasionally individual securities, all within accounts that are in your name and safely held at an independent third-party custodian. While we can't control the market, we can control our behavior. I offer a steady hand and common sense during the market’s short-term ups and downs to help you stay focused on your long-term plan. Disciplined asset allocation, disciplined diversification, and disciplined rebalancing are the principals of how I invest.
Unfortunately, the average investor not only underperforms the market but also underperforms their own investments because of their own destructive behavior. The average investor will speculate at the top of the market, or panic at the bottom, or under-diversify their portfolio, or even over-diversify their portfolio. They will speculate instead of invest, or will invest for yield instead of total return, or they will simply say, "This time it's different," when in fact it rarely ever is. The dominant factor when it comes to real life investment returns is not investment performance, but investor behavior.
My job is to talk you out of doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. The pickup in return from not making the usual investor mistakes is considerable, with some studies showing the average investor loses as much as 2/3 of their investment return due to destructive behavior. The cost of making one of those mistakes is exponentially more than the cost of hiring me to help you avoid making it.
Over the long run the financial markets are relatively efficient and I invest accordingly. This includes using low-cost index and mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and occasionally individual securities, all within accounts that are in your name and safely held at an independent third-party custodian. While we can't control the market, we can control our behavior. I offer a steady hand and common sense during the market’s short-term ups and downs to help you stay focused on your long-term plan. Disciplined asset allocation, disciplined diversification, and disciplined rebalancing are the principals of how I invest.