Managing your investments can feel like a full-time job, and that’s because it is. One of the cornerstones of our practice is managing the investments and assets of our clients to ensure they are positioned as favorably as possible. And it all starts with our unique investment approach.

Stay humble and respect the market

Capital markets, where information is readily available and competition is intense, are generally efficient over the long term. And typically, the more liquid the market, the more efficient it is. But regardless of market efficiency, market prices communicate incredibly valuable information, giving us insights into market participants and trends that could affect your investments. We never take this data for granted.

Understand behavioral bias

As humans, we’re all susceptible to emotional biases and errors in thought. Our investment models take into account the fact that investors don’t always make perfectly logical and rational decisions based on available information. And everything from recency bias to groupthink and the endowment effect can impact both our clients directly and the markets they’re invested in.

Know where returns are coming from

Over the long term, higher-risk investments are generally associated with greater returns when compared with lower-risk securities. However, realized returns can vary dramatically over time. And rather than assuming recent returns will continue (recency bias), a smarter approach is to gain an understanding of the factors that drive those returns so that we can anticipate how the investment might perform at different points in the market cycle.

Emphasize lower valuation markets

The price paid for an investment is inexorably linked to its eventual realized return. That’s why we go in-depth to compare market prices to our best assessment of an investment’s value – emphasizing our focus on lower valuation markets that will outperform higher valuation markets over the long term.

Avoid uncompensated risks

While it’s true that incremental risk drives incremental returns, this relationship can be distorted by short-term market dynamics. Understanding how to avoid risks that don’t carry the appropriate level of potential return means our clients face less short-term risk, informed by uncontrollable market factors.

Diversify risks rather than eliminate them

There’s no way to be successful as an investor without some amount of risk. That’s why we don’t seek to eliminate risk altogether but instead spread out that risk to smooth out returns and balance what has performed well versus what may not have.

Manage fees and taxes holistically

Investments must be considered taking into account both easily available information as well as the net impact on the overall portfolio. We approach your investments to optimize your portfolio for after-tax, net-of-fees returns over a full market cycle.

Control what can be controlled

While there’s no investment strategy or process that works 100 percent of the time, we’ve found that the best approach is to build a process that’s informed by historical evidence, ignoring as much noise as possible, to control the inputs we can control, and minimize uncontrollable market impacts.