Working with You

Our core investment strategy is to provide and manage a portfolio of stocks that provide a rising level of income each year. If you’re the type of person who wants to build a portfolio and only spend the income, this is for you. Or reinvest the dividends? Even better since that adds a dollar-cost-averaging approach to buy more shares, helping both the income and value to grow faster. We manage the account by investing in companies – mostly domestic - who have had a history of paying dividends and an expectation of increasing those dividends in the future. Our goal is to generate income from the portfolio which exceeds the market income and rises every year in excess of inflation. A secondary goal is for the total return of the portfolio to reasonably track the overall market. While history does not guarantee success, we have achieved both goals since 2012.

Would you like to own a piece of a company that has a new technology? Or would you like to own an established company that is trading at a bargain price? While our core portfolio focuses on rising dividends, our Hidden Gems portfolio looks for companies with a new-way-to-slice-bread, or stock prices that are below the company’s historic intrinsic value. The portfolio goal is growth of principal. Don’t be shy. Some of the best ideas in this portfolio have come from clients.

Whether it’s Government Bonds, Corporate Bonds, or Preferred’s, bonds tend to bridge the volatility gap between money market funds and stocks. They are a great diversification tool. Tax Free Municipal Bonds too are attractive to many investors. The higher your tax bracket, the more attractive municipal bonds become. We favor Exchange Traded Funds (ETF’s) and Closed-End Funds for bond investing but also have access to individual bonds. So, how do you decide how much bonds to own in a diversified portfolio? Ask about our Cash Flow Plan.

While our core focus is domestic rising dividend stocks, there are many great companies headquartered outside of the U.S. Many are large multi-nationals like Nestle, Siemens or Samsung. We think Foreign Stocks provide great diversification and often provide more potential return at a better price. We like the dividends from them too!

We use all the above investment portfolios to implement an investment strategy. But how do we develop the investment strategy? It all must start with you. Financial Planning helps us carefully evaluate where you are today and where you want to go in the future. From there we can help provide the roadmap along with our commitment to help you follow it. You may have seen straight line forecasts used before. We go to a much higher level. Once you understand how this tool works, you’ll feel comfortable knowing that we’ve taken market volatility into the picture. Our Financial Planning services are offered complimentary to our clients.