Clients First! Information

Mike created Clients First! to serve investment clients in the manner they deserve: their interests come before anything else. What you get as a result: a portfolio of investments tailored to meet your personal and financial objectives. Based on your preferences, it will be designed to limit downside risks without overly limiting long-term performance. What you would have: an effective three-part investment strategy. Asset Allocation. After establishing a relationship, a balanced portfolio with appropriate asset allocation is created. This reduces volatility and reductions in value due to a down market. But performance will not necessarily diminish as volatility does. It depends on your preferences. For example, a client may have a high tolerance for risk and want to be aggressive with all of his or her funds, i.e., investing everything in stocks. But adding bonds, even as only 10 percent of the portfolio, would have a dramatically positive effect on a portfolio's performance when markets fall. Correlation of Assets. The second part is to set up a good correlation of assets. This means having assets in different types of investments. Different investments move in different directions each year. An obvious example is large cap stocks versus mid-term treasuries. 2008 was a terrible year for large cap stocks (big corporations). In contrast, treasuries with about a 6 year term were the best performers in 2008 (according to the Wall Street Journal). But who knew and who would have predicted it? So having the right correlation of investments, given that picking the winning category's nearly impossible, is critical. That way the portfolio benefits regardless of which assets outperform the market in a given year. Tactical Allocation of Assets. Third, allocate investments well tactically. With the right expertise and software, the first two parts aren't too difficult. This part is the toughest. It means investing more in different asset classes and sectors based on which are most likely to perform best. So once the ...