We firmly believe that every client is unique and that every person has his/her own unique path in life. In order to help get you on the best possible financial path, we learn and understand what your goals are and what is important to you. We listen. We listen to you. We listen to your goals, to your objectives, and to your concerns. We then help you figure out how to use your money to reach those goals and objectives.
Just as you would not take a multiday hike or a multiday car journey without a map and a plan, we believe that a financial plan is helpful in order to put you on the best possible financial path to meet your goals. Importantly, we believe that the quality of the plan and the quality of the guide is paramount. The future will come whether you have prepared for it or not. To prepare, we believe that a plan is important to provide a proactive approach to your financial future. We believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Strategic Financial Planning
We believe that planning is an integral piece of an investment strategy and the implementation of an investment strategy. As a result, we include financial planning (at no extra cost to our clients) as a part of a total investment process and a total investment implementation. While some advisors charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars for an investment plan, we do not charge extra for financial planning. However, our clients at their option may decide to utilize our investment services without the complimentary financial plan.
We listen to you in order to understand your goals, your needs, your concerns, your investment objectives, your risk tolerances, your tax situation, your time horizon and other relevant information. Based on this, we will craft a custom-tailored, comprehensive financial plan for you. We will review your complete financial position. We will understand where you are and how to develop a strategy to attempt to put you on the best possible financial path in order to meet your objectives.
Coordination with Accountant, Lawyer, and Other Advisors
We will coordinate with your accountant, lawyer, and other advisors to make sure that your financial plan fits harmoniously with other aspects of your life.
Review of Existing Assets
We will review and analyze your existing portfolio while being highly sensitive to your goals, risk tolerance and any tax implications.
Customized Asset Allocation
A critical piece of your investment strategy is your customized asset allocation. These decisions are primarily based upon your goals, risk tolerance, tax situation, and other individual circumstances. We also use our investment experience, analysis, and judgement to adjust the asset allocation decision by the risk/return opportunities in the investment marketplace.
Investment Selections
In the next step, we then combine sound investment principals and sound investment methods with our deep and extensive investment experience, research, and analysis to uncover and to carefully select thoughtful investments that fit with your asset allocation. We look for investments that we believe have attractive risk/return characteristics. We carefully and thoughtfully select investments based upon facts, empirical evidence, research, analysis, knowledge and judgment tempered by 29 years of investment experience. We do not invest based upon emotions, “what is hot,” tips, or the “flavor of the month.” Importantly, we place a major emphasis on low-cost investments that don’t have high expenses.
Saving You Money
We place a major focus on low-cost investments such as low-cost mutual funds (for example, index funds) and low-cost Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) so that the expense savings can be used to further your investments, which can compound over time and may increase your financial outcomes. In our opinion, loads do not benefit people. While we do invest in and utilize individual investment securities for some clients’ accounts, we place an emphasis on passive, index, and low-cost investments. Importantly, what we do not invest in is critical. We seek to avoid high cost, high commission investments such as private REITs, fund of funds, and closed-end funds at offering.
Construct and Implement Your Investment Portfolio
We place a substantial emphasis on tax efficiency and on tax minimization. We will diversify your investments by asset class, by country, by industry, and by individual company. Charles Schwab & Company is the custodian for our clients’ assets and maintains physical custody of our clients’ funds and/or securities.
Monitoring Portfolio
Once we construct an investment portfolio for you, we will proactively and vigilantly monitor the current risk/return characteristics of your investments, your portfolio’s performance, and the underlying characteristics of your investments on an ongoing basis. We will rebalance your portfolio as required by changes in the markets’ risk/return characteristics and even more importantly, by changes in your financial circumstances.
If you believe that we can be of assistance to you, please feel free to call 713-870-9516 or email jleder@lederfidcap.com , and we can see if we are a good fit for each other.