“Independent” is not just a part of our name. It is a core philosophy. We work only for our clients. We are a “fee-only” financial planning firm. We do not accept any commissions whatsoever. This leaves us with the independence necessary to be able to recommend to our clients only the best investments and financial planning advice.

We believe that investments are only part of the financial planning process. An individual’s or family’s finances must be looked at in their entirety to understand the proper steps to take to ensure financial health. Spending and savings plans, retirement analysis, tax and estate planning, and investments are all interdependent. For this reason, we try to become familiar with all these aspects of our clients’ lives.

In the area of investments, we believe in the principles of modern portfolio theory which is widely supported by historical records and academic studies. Modern portfolio theory has shown that portfolio diversification across different asset classes can provide superior returns with less risk. In this context, clients should know that we do not chase “hot” funds. The first question we ask when considering a fund to include into a portfolio is: “How does this asset fit with the other assets?”  Statistics are used to judge correlation to other assets, along with Beta (movement in relation to market forces), Sharpe ratio (reward for risk taken), Standard deviation (the amount of deviation from normal returns), and Alpha (excess reward to expected risk). There are many other metrics that we also consider:  the tenure of management, consistency of investment philosophy, and expenses charged by the fund. Asset classes that we may consider for our clients include domestic and international equities, fixed income instruments, inflation protected treasuries (TIPS), commodities, options, and long/short funds. Our criteria is so strict that about 20 funds / ETF’s make our investment list out of more than 20,000 funds that are available to the investing public.  Each portfolio is custom-designed with the client’s goals, time horizon, and risk tolerance in mind.