Sowing (v.) stocking with seed; the act of scattering or propagation
Based on your needs and goals, we select the crops (investments) to propagate your farm for an immediate or future harvest.
Much like a farmer has a multitude of crop options that are available to him, we have countless investments (crops) that are available for the investor; mutual funds, exchange traded funds, indexes, money managers, individual stocks (both domestic and foreign), bonds, CDs, municipal bonds, structured notes, and the list goes on. Our experience has taught us however, to make simple choices so the client has a full grasp of their investment program.
Our investment process primarily involves three investment (core) areas:
- Individual Stocks
- Laddered Fixed Income (CDs, corporate bonds and municipal bonds)
- Structured Notes
STOCKS: We follow approximately 300 companies that we use to make our selections from. We select companies that are undervalued and pay dividends. Our experience has taught us that quality always holds up better, and remains more consistent, over the long haul. While it may not be “vogue” at times, it is always classic. We look for companies with low debt and a long track record of not only paying a dividend, but also having a history of increasing that dividend annually. A strict buying discipline is followed when selecting a company for a portfolio, but more importantly we have a strict selling discipline. The economy is divided into 10 sectors. In our process, we will select one to three stocks for each sector to provide a well-balanced portfolio depending on the invested dollars.
FIXED INCOME: Interest rates are the fuel, or the kryptonite, when it comes to fixed income. As interest rates rise, the value of a fixed investment will go down, and vice versa if an investor is forced to sell prior to maturity. To take the guess work out of the fixed income market, we prefer to ladder a portfolio over a period of time. Just as a ladder as rungs, our portfolios are spread out over a period of time according to their maturity dates. As the fixed income investment matures, those proceeds will then be invested in a longer-dated maturity asset taking the guess work out of fixed investing.
STRUCTURED NOTES: As an added compliment to the portfolio of stocks and bonds, we use structured notes. These are custom notes where we design the notes to best help protect the client’s principal. In our experience, we have been able to protect a client’s money from a 50% decline or less.
