Frequently Asked Questions

·  For clients where we manage $400k or over, we charge 0.25% of assets under management per quarter.

·  Unlimited meetings, financial planning, and free personalized third-party 401(k)/ETF/mutual fund advice are included at no extra cost.

·  You are responsible for broker commissions, foreign exchange fees (FX), IRA, account and all other custodian fees which usually is less than $10/month per account.

·  Compare our fees here.

Because we’re highly focused on research and analysis, as well as providing high-quality service to our clients, our time constraints force us to work only with clients who have at least $400,000 invested with us. In some cases, however, we can make exceptions. Please contact us for more details.

We currently have investors from the Philippines and can accept clients in most other countries. To see if we can help you, please contact us.

Money invested today can snowball from a small amount to something substantial. The earlier you start, the sooner you can be financially independent and live your dreams. Contact us for a free consultation.

Not all advisors and planners are created equally. Click here to see how we are different.

Just like everyone thinks they are an above average driver, there is a tendency for all investors to think they produce above-average results. Our human conditioning pushes us to remember only our successes, and not our failures.

You could have earned 5-8% per year over the last 10 years, but everyone else could have earned 2% more. Over a long period of time, even a 1% difference in returns is astronomical. Unless you measure your results using a time-weighted (not money-weighted) approach, you don’t really know how well you are doing.
 
More importantly, the amount of risk one takes plays a big role in a portfolio’s possible outcomes. We believe every investment (and investor) should be assessed by their risk/reward proposition.

If one stock earned 10% per year compared to another stock that earned 8% per year, but the first stock had double the risk of the first, we believe that the second stock is the better investment from a risk/reward perspective.

We view investment managers the same way. There are many things that could happen over the long run, so we don’t invest in ETFs or mutual funds that have the highest returns. Instead, we invest in the ones that have the best risk adjusted returns. We think you should too.

Please contact us to discuss in more detail.

Value investing in a nutshell is simply to buy stocks when they are undervalued. Learn more about value investing here.

Unlike mutual and hedge fund managers, we communicate our thoughts on each investment position at least quarterly. We also help our clients become better investors by illustrating key investment principles in frequent email updates. You’re always welcome to ask us questions at any time.

Additionally, mutual funds tend to hold at least 100 investments. We believe in a more concentrated approach and typically hold between 5-25 company stocks. You can read more about our investment strategy here.

Most importantly, we put our money where our mouth is. We invest our own money in the same investments that you will have.

We have 2 objectives:
1. Outperform the S&P 500 over a full market cycle (about 7-10 years).
2. Our target return will be at least 10% on average per year.
For the latest investment results, please contact us.

We pride ourselves in having one of the most thorough research processes in the industry. Click here to learn more about the rigorous steps we take.

Most people forget that a lot of ETFs and mutual funds also invest in individual stocks. We do not buy just 1-3 stocks for your portfolio. We believe that disciplined investing in 5-25 companies at prices with appropriate margins of safety offers sufficient diversification and risk protection.

With a long-term investment horizon of around 10 years or longer, we define risk as the chance of incurring a permanent loss of capital. We believe that volatility and beta (correlation to overall market performance) are inaccurate definitions of risk for long-term investors.

If investing in individual stocks still sounds risky to you, please contact us so we can explain it in further detail.

Warren Buffett says, “Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.” 

Our investment strategy is to be concentrated in 5-25 companies, usually in the mid-teens. This reduces the risk of permanent loss because we are able to know our investments very intimately. Additionally, we believe our 26^th best idea is less attractive than our top 10 investments.

To see a detailed explanation of our investment principles, please click here.

Please contact us for further illustration of this concept.

Our highly-concentrated approach, and unique investment philosophy allows us the opportunity to outperform various indexes such as the S&P 500 over the long-term. We discuss this in more detail here.

To see the difference between our results and the S&P 500 index, please contact us.

The word automated says it all. Automation is good when you want to improve your productivity.

We believe that a robotic or algorithmic process of asset allocation and rebalancing is not a good approach for your investments. Productivity in investing helps robo-advisory firm, not you. They have produced a system where they can have one employee look after thousands of clients. Do you really want to be like everyone else?

Let’s say two people rely on an automated software to do their asset allocation. They’re both 40 and have a moderate risk tolerance. One is single with no children and the other one’s married with five kids. The first individual has $1 million in liquid assets, the second has none. Should they have similar portfolios? Probably not.

A computer cannot recommend what’s best for you. It can only give you a “good enough” solution. Automated processes also can’t capture complex issues. Today’s macroeconomic conditions combined with your unique financial situation requires a more customized investment approach.

Contact us so we can explain this concept to you in more detail.