I once had a very sophisticated client who knew more about the financial markets than most financial professionals.  After all, he worked on the investment committee at a large ACC school with a HUGE endowment.  When he was approaching retirement and was looking to hire a financial advisor, he asked me, “Kevin, I assume you are going to take care of this for me, right?”  Somewhat caught off guard I said, “Absolutely, this is what we do!”  He said, “Great.  Because I want to spend time on my boat, traveling to see my three children/grandchildren, and playing pickleball…NOT worrying about managing my investments.”  

My point in telling this story is not to say you can’t manage your investments on your own.  However, as we get older, time is that much more valuable.  One of the greatest gifts we can give you in retirement is the gift of more time!  

With all of that said, we start with the academic backbone of Harry Markowitz’s Modern Portfolio Theory.  Essentially, we believe in sound diversification to eliminate as many risks as possible for you in retirement.  We then build a portfolio of ETFs and Mutual Funds with low expense ratios to optimize the desired investment allocation.  And finally, we take the approach of minimizing the tax impact of your investments through tax efficient investment selection and “Asset Location.”  Listen to one of my podcast episodes on the Asset Location concept here:  Episode 36 – Asset Location to Improve Tax Efficiency in Retirement.