1. A fiduciary is ethically and legally bound to put their clients best interest ahead of their own. The role of a fiduciary is to take care to ensure there are no conflicts of interest. 
2. Yes we are a fiduciary; but what does that mean to you? It means that first and foremost we manage your assets for your benefit before ours. All decisions we make regarding your assets are through the view of what is in your best interest. We maintain discretionary authority over your assets so we act in a highly professional capacity. Through comprehensive planning and ongoing advice we look to maintain your trust as a fiduciary.

We are a fee based advisor. This means that we charge a flat fee that is deducted based on the assets in your account. A general example of our fees could look something like this. If you have $100,000 in a 1.0% fee based account with us every quarter $250 will be deducted totaling $1,000 for the year  We have not declared ourselves a “fee only” advisor because we do believe that in certain cases it it more beneficial for our client to use a structured investment product with a different cost structure. This fee structure is what we feel allows us to provide the highest level of advice to you, the client.

Many times your all in cost is overlookedor just frankly not talked about. This is something that we believe needs to be at the forefront of discussions. Your all in costis the cost of our advisory feeand the cost of your investments. Holding individual stocks is one of the least expensive ways to invest. Holding individual stockcarries too much risk for most. This causes the need to use diversified investment instruments like exchange traded funds and mutual funds. These investments have a cost. In our practice we keep the cost of investing,top of mind. We work with our industry leading investment product partnersto find the most effective investmentsfor the most efficient price!

We are a fee based advisor. This means that we charge a flat fee that is deducted based on the assets in your account. A general example of our fees could look something like this.If you have 100,000 dollars in a 1% fee based account every quarter 250 dollars will be deducted totaling 1,000 dollars for the year. We have not to declared ourselves a “fee only” advisor shop because we do believe that in certain cases it is more beneficial to the client to use a structured investment product that may have a different cost structure compared to a flat fee rather than rule out these investments all together.

Our ideal client is ultimately someone who has an open mind, is understanding, and can be fully transparent. We don’t need you to know the ins and outs of the industry to be a great client. That’s our job! We appreciate clients who have an open mind to accept the advice that we are giving. Your personal finances are a delicate topic and we know that. We are blessed to have so much experience in this firm. We rely on that to give you expert advice. We find the most success with clients who are fully transparent with us. We understand this takes high amounts of trust to be able to open up to someone outside of your household about your finances. But when you provide us with your entire financial picture it yields the greatest results. We can find weak spots or shortfalls to guide your finances more efficiently.

We rely on the years of experiences in the market that our firm has participated in and navigated which we find is very beneficial to our clients.

We also have leading investment firms with some of the most well respected investors in the industry as our resources and partners. They provide us with industry level research and investment options that we review to find the best possible investment for your scenario.

A custodian is a financial institution that holds financial assets safely to minimize the risk of loss or theft. All investment advisors are required to have a custodian. Custodians do so much more than safekeeping of assets. They also facilitate trading, dividend distributions, transferring funds, and reporting to clients. We work with multiple custodians. We have done our due diligence in the formation of our RIA and we decided that to provide the highest level of service we need to have relationships with multiple different custodians. The custodians we work with are Betterment, Interactive Brokers, and Purshe Kaplan Sterling Investments (PKS). Each one of these custodians provides us different solutions for you as our client and we have a wide range of options with these strategic partnerships.

The simple answer to this question is yes. We are legally not accountants or lawyers so we recommend that you consult your personal accountant or attorney before making any decisions. We also, with your permission, consult with them directly on your behalf to provide a seamless process if such a scenario arises. This is something that we feel is essential to develop a comprehensive financial plan.

Let’s start with what diversification is. To put it simply “don’t have all your eggs in one basket”. There is inherent risk in having concentrated investments you want to avoid this when making your investments

It is important to diversify your portfolio for numerous reasons, so many that we can’t possibly cover them all in this video. A couple of the top reasons to diversify are accomplishing your goals, understanding your risk profile, and reducing volatility.

The biggest one is accomplishing your financial and investment goals. For example if you are planning for retirement and every month you’ve been saving all the money you should and you’re doing the right thing but the whole time you have only invested it into one company. It comes time you want to retire and two months before you retire the CEO of the company you have been invested in comes out and says they’re restructuring and the stock price is cut in half. Now look who’s not going to have enough money into retirement.

Understanding your risk profile is easier when you have a diversified portfolio. For example if you are accumulating for retirement and you can save large amounts of money so you don’t need a high amount of risk to accomplish your goals a diversified portfolio reduces your risk by spreading it out over many different asset classes and sectors. If it was not diversified you may be subject to way more risk than you are personally comfortable with.

Speaking of what you’re comfortable with, diversification can reduce the volatility of your portfolio which can make everyone feel better about everything

An investment policy statement is an important and useful tool to lay the foundation of our client- advisor relationship. In the investment policy statement we detail how we will make investment decisions. We also discuss asset allocation and risk tolerance so that we can accomplish your investing goals.