We work with clients who wish to diversify and/or avoid the risks of stock market investments, and who prefer the safety and peace of mind of receiving contractually guaranteed returns from very sound, well established financial companies, backed by state-required reserves, and high company ratings and surpluses. We have a bias towards ‘Safe Money Solutions’, and take very seriously the decades of peer-reviewed academic finance research.
This research shows that most investors, AND their advisors, underperform stock market index returns by several percent per year. (Source: Dalbar studies of investor returns, numerous studies debunking claims of superior managers and investment methods.) There are many reasons for this, but the results are the same: Lower returns, higher taxes, more worry, and disappointments in retirement. This is unnecessary. And we help you prepare in a different, safer way.
We concentrate on solutions that will avoid the downsides of stock market investing, to avoid the types of wealth destruction that we have twice observed in the market since 2000. How many more downturns can you tolerate? We select solutions which will eliminate the uncertainty over how much money will be available, and for how long. And we put special attention on solutions that can grow tax deferred, and can even be taken out tax free.
The financial life-cycle can be viewed as three stages: wealth accumulation, conservation, and distribution. Our focus is on keeping and growing what you have accumulated without going backwards, and making what you have last as long as you need it. Although historically the stock market has provided the greatest long term average returns for wealth accumulation, it has also seen the greatest variation in returns, with long periods of negative or flat growth and sudden drops in value. Sometimes it will drop when you most need the money. Can you accept that yet another time?
Although we do believe that some portion of some investors’ assets may best be grown in the market, depending on their tolerance of its ups and downs, we believe that many investors focus too heavily on it. They ignore, or are not aware of, very safe solutions with attractive returns offered by old and strong companies, who have survived so long (up to 300 years!) precisely because they continue to innovate and provide attractive returns in a safe manner, as well as manage their business conservatively.
Remember, it is not what you make that counts, it is what you keep that matters. We focus on earnings that never go backwards.
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