Our Financial Planning Philosophy and Process
How Do You Define Your "Wealth"?
It certainly means more than a large paycheck, a fat 401(k) account, or even a fancy house.
At Harvest Rock Advisors, we know there's much more to the notion of wealth than money and material possessions. Realizing a fulfilling retirement, protecting your family from risk, paying for your children's higher education, and even the comfort that comes from feeling more confident about the future are all valuable wealth assets in their own right.
Effective wealth management is a holistic and intensely individualized process around which comprehensive financial planning serves as the bedrock. Do any of the following common life scenarios ring true for you?
- When can I retire and still enjoy my desired financial lifestyle?
- How do we sell our business to our children and meet our mutual financial needs?
- Can we afford to purchase vacation real estate now?
- How much college education expense can we afford to pay?
- I have received a financial windfall. How do I maximize my new wealth?
These are just a few of the financial planning rooted life challenges that often require assistance from an experienced wealth professional.
More than ever, successful people need trusted, independent and competent wealth expertise powered by sophisticated financial planning — our team rises to the task.
Our Investment Philosophy
In these uncertain times, we believe a dynamic investment strategy is a superior approach to producing satisfactory investment portfolio outcomes. To be sure, the traditional “60/40” portfolio mix between stocks and investment-grade bonds have struggled for years - due mainly to the dismal performance of bonds. Fixed rate bonds have absolutely failed to provide traditional portfolio risk benefits for too long now, and who knows if and when they will do so again.
We’re not waiting around for bonds to behave better and instead practice a “modern asset allocation” portfolio management approach, which entails a broad mix of investments, both traditional and alternative.
Our process is rooted in active portfolio management using a bottom-up approach to investment security selection. Our research is designed to identify the best-in-class active institutional money managers with a proven track record that deploy a disciplined approach to security selection and portfolio management. We do not chase investment returns nor traffic in proprietary investment products. The objective is consistent, risk-adjusted outperformance of capital markets, net of fees.
In our view, there are always investment risks to sidestep and opportunities to capture across global economies and capital markets. However, they’re often not obvious, and we work diligently to identify and exploit them to our client’s advantage.
Once the important asset allocation work is complete, execution of your investment strategy combines a mix of tactical, strategic, and alternative investment instruments. This “core-satellite” asset allocation approach yields flexibility to effectively manage investment portfolio risk in unstable market conditions.
Core equity – both pooled funds and stock portfolios – is the bedrock portfolio investment class, both domestic and foreign. Various fully vetted alternative investments and themes help to offset equity market volatilty and seize opportunities to add positive risk-adjusted portfolio return.
Our proud independence mandates a considerable time researching, evaluating and monitoring all third-party investments to discern the right instruments to help meet your personalized needs and preferences.
As capital market conditions change, our honed investment process is designed to guide future portfolio changes to keep your investment and financial plan on track, all in a tax-efficient manner.
The Wealthcare Financial Planning Process
Did you know that a retired couple is likely to experience one spouse living into their nineties? They will spend a small fortune on food and health care, live mainly on a fixed income, and face a loss of their purchasing power every year.
Also consider that psychological studies show that an investor weighs the impact of a capital loss more than two times heavier than a realized capital gain.
We are naturally wired to make emotional financial decisions when left to our own devices. The consequences may be outliving your money, making unintended lifestyle sacrifices or taking unnecessary financial risks.
The point is that your financial success is often predicated on smart planning, good execution and objective decision-making.
Our financial planning process - Wealthcare – can be an effective tool to help you prioritize your most valued life goals and prepare you to reach them with more confidence.
The foundation of Wealthcare planning is discovering your most valued goals and helping you to prioritize them. Once your goals are established, they are stress-tested to determine the right blend of strategies and tactics to pursue them with a higher level of confidence. Our process designs an investment strategy that squares with your resources, goals, tax situation, and risk tolerance.
In other words, your investment plan should be a product of your fully developed financial plan, not the other way around.
Once designed, the model uses simulated probability analysis to produce your plan confidence rate and a personalized "Comfort Zone", the space where your fincnail plan and investments meet in balance. We then work with you to maintain your plan on the proper path over time, recommending corrections as necessary to keep you in your Comfort Zone.
The bottom line is that effective financial planning can help you make smarter life decisions, deal with present challenges and prepare to live the fullest life possible with more confidence.
*Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. No investment strategy, such as asset allocation, can guarantee a profit or protect against loss.