Investment Advisory
Helping to preserve and create wealth through customized, tax-efficient management.
Through our broker dealer, we offer Investment Advisory services where we advise individuals with the review and design of their investment portfolios. We take the time to understand how you have created your wealth: was it earned income; was it inherited; is it concentrated in a low cost basis holding? We structure our recommendations around your particular desires for that money and a prudent asset allocation, versus imprinting the same portfolio onto all of our clients’ money.
Asset Allocation
We help you construct your portfolio with an analysis of your portfolio return requirements as compared to an optimal asset allocation and your risk tolerance. Asset allocation begins with the basic classifications of cash, bonds, stocks and real estate, and progresses by identifying sub-classes such as products that invest in large companies, small companies and international stocks. We also factor in sub-styles such as value investments, growth investments and hedged strategies. All of these variables are combined to formulate an analysis and recommendations specific to each individual client. Asset allocation neither assures a profit nor protects against loss in declining markets. It is also important to establish an asset allocation across all of your accounts in order to avoid ‘overlap’, where many of your accounts own the same type of investment. We make asset allocation recommendations after reviewing the holdings in each of our client’s existing investment accounts, including 401(k)’s, IRA’s, etc.
Asset Ownership
An often-overlooked aspect of investment planning is asset ownership. Once we have confirmed your asset allocation, we then identify the least tax-efficient investments of your overall portfolio and optimally own them in a tax-deferred account or retirement plan. This may entail reallocating your 401(k), IRA, or Profit Sharing Plan. Little details such as this can help yield far more in returns than market timing or investment selection. Lastly, we make sure that asset ownership is coordinated with your estate plans in order to plan for generational family wealth transfers.
Manager Selection and Implementation
Our goal is to provide an independent, objective selection of investment options to help design your asset allocation plan. Selection is based on the quality of money managers, not the name of the firm. We use consulting firms to identify specialist money managers, visit these managers regularly, monitor their performance and evaluate personnel changes.
We consider the investments and the managers it selects as specialists in particular investment styles. The quality of the team, not name of the firm, is our overriding consideration. These firms and their expertise are not normally available to individual investors.
Performance and Portfolio Monitoring
A Gotham Financial client always has access to monitor the performance of their portfolio. How is my absolute return compared to my target growth for that money? How is the manager performing? We review your portfolio on a regular basis and make this detailed information available to you. Not every asset class or manager has identical performance, so in regular client meetings with us we review the current portfolio as compared to the target asset allocation. If warranted, we will suggest ways to rebalance or reallocate your portfolio depending upon issues ranging from your family’s cash flow needs to macro-economic trends. Portfolio rebalancing neither assures a profit nor protects against loss in declining markets.
Please note that all investing involves risk including the potential loss of principal. No investment strategy, such as asset allocation, can guarantee a profit or protect against loss in periods of declining values. Rebalancing investments may cause investors to incur transaction costs and, when rebalancing a non-retirement account, taxable events will be created that may increase your tax liability. Rebalancing a portfolio cannot assure a profit or protect against a loss in any given market environment.