A Better Price

Cost control is a critically important component of investment success. Many advisors understand this and wisely recommend the use of low-cost funds. Many of these same advisors, however, haven’t looked in the mirror: They somehow always find a way to justify their own exorbitant advisory fees (and, yes, a 1% AUM fee at almost any tier is exorbitant).

At Planvesting, we charge a simple, flat fee – typically between $2,000 and $4,000 per year – that’s actually related to the amount of effort involved in managing our clients’ portfolios.

A Better Plan

Monte Carlo Analysis (MCA) has become the de facto standard planning tool for many (perhaps most) financial advisors. It replaced “straight-line” spreadsheets because, theoretically, it does a better job of modeling risk and can, therefore, give investors some level of confidence that their investment plan will succeed.

But those “probabilities of success” are completely dependent upon whatever capital market assumptions (i.e., risks and returns of the various asset classes) they’ve been programmed to simulate. And, unfortunately, accurately estimating long-term risks (standard deviations) and returns by asset class is virtually impossible. Which means all those pretty graphics and “probabilities of success” are largely meaningless (have you ever read the fine print?!?).

In addition, MCA does a poor job of modelling extreme (“Black Swan”) events and it doesn’t properly capture return sequence risk. 

At Planvesting, we take a simplified approach to investment planning. It’s a common-sense approach originally outlined by John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard: Live below your means; never bear too much or too little risk; invest early and often; diversify using low-cost funds; minimize taxes, never try to time the market; and stay the course.

A Better Portfolio

Risk and return are closely related. But not all risks are created equal.

Some risks – like diversified exposure to global stock markets and the use of short-term, high-quality bond funds – have positive expected returns. 

Other risks – like active management, market timing, concnetrated stock positions and excessive fees – have negative expected returns.

At Planvesting, we strive to eliminate or significantly reduce unnecessary portfolio risks.

A Better Partner

 As an independent Registered Investment Advisor, Planvesting is required by law to act as a fiduciary; to put our clients’ interests ahead of our own. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.