We understand the things that are important to you and then define clearly your financial and life goals. I recommend specific planning strategies to help make them happen. I review all aspects of your financial situation and recommend strategies for education planning, debt management, estate planning, risk management using insurance and of course long term retirement income planning. The key document is our action plan which lists the “what, who and when” of each step needed to implement the planning strategies recommended.

A comprehensive plan requires proper data collection, analysis and a number of meetings to quantify the financial goals, assets and cash flow and qualify the recommendations. Rather than the final report it is the process of planning that delivers the most significant benefits for our clients. Planning costs start at start at $1800 for an employed couple with one or two sources of income to $3,600 for a self – employed individual with multiple sources of income and various assets.

I guarantee a complete refund if my clients do not feel the value of the planning process did not exceed the cost of the plan.

If we decide it makes sense for you to become an investment client, the implementation is included as part of our client support. If not an investment client, I would quote either an hourly rate or a flat rate depending on the time to implement and complexity.

As a new client, we would have discussions weekly then bi-weekly and monthly until accounts are properly invested and your plan is in place. After the first year our contacts would be as needed with a minimum of 3 update calls plus a detailed annual review of your plan and portfolio.

The annual review meeting process is our most important meeting. It gives me a chance to catch up on your life plans, update and review long term projections, make sure goals are on track and if not to put plans in place to get them back on track. We review performance and recommend any changes. We start a few weeks before our planned meeting date and send out a review package with statements, performance, and updated Net Worth reports. We send out an expense review document and request it be returned before our meeting so we may update our projections to be able to discuss and review at our meeting.

Either on line using Microsoft Teams or in person at a convenient location. We typically have boardroom meetings at 430 Hazeldean, main floor.

Ottawa

Over 50% of my client base is self-employed and we specialize in supporting the many diverse needs of the self-employed. Tax planning is key for self-employed and as a graduate of the Knowledge Bureau’s Distinguished Tax Advisor program along with over 20 years’ experience in serving self-employed individuals.

Building and monitoring Investment portfolios is core to our offering. More importantly it is making sure funds are invested properly, will maximize returns and minimize risk based on the time horizon required.

My investment strategy begins with my Investment Principles:

I believe that all lastingly successful investing is essentially goal-focused and planning-driven. All failed investing is market-focused and event-driven.

Stated another way: every truly successful investor I've ever known was acting continuously on a long-term plan. Every failed investor I've known continually reacted to sudden and terrifying market shocks.

I've found that long-term investing success is only incidentally a function of the economy and the markets. It is a direct function of how the investor reacts—or, more properly, how he/she refuses to react.

You and I are long-term, goal-focused equity investors, acting on our plan with patience and discipline. The smaller part of what I do for clients is the crafting of that plan. The much larger part is helping you not to react inappropriately during stressful timesK.

I continue to believe that the equity market can't be consistently forecast, much less timed, and that the only certain way of capturing equities' superior long-term returns is to sit through their occasionally steep but historically temporary declines.

We first determine an appropriate allocation to fixed income and equity funds. In accumulation (pre-retirement) portfolios’ the greatest allocation is to equities. Income portfolio allocation strategy is mentioned below.

We practice broad equity diversification among sectors that historically run on different cycles in order to mute the short to intermediate term volatility of an equity portfolio both below and above its long-term trend line. In other words: a properly diversified portfolio will get higher lows and lower highs.

In the long run, this strategy will ultimately deliver the full return of all the portfolio components. In a genuinely diversified equity portfolio, something is (or some things are) always “underperforming.” That's how you know you're properly diversified.

This requires selecting mutual funds managed by excellent teams each with a specific discipline picking large and small company stocks, using both value and growth evaluation criteria and diversified by geography.

We rebalance portfolios annually and every time we do we take profits in the top-performing sector(s) of the portfolio in order to buy more of the underperformer(s) while they're out of favor. This is the opposite of what unassisted human nature does. Unassisted human nature sells the currently underperforming (and therefore potentially cheaper) portfolio components to buy the popular (and perhaps more fully valued, if not overvalued) sectors. We don’t allow this in our portfolios.

The days of allocating portfolios with standard 40% fixed income (bonds) and 60% equity funds (stocks) are long gone given 10 year government bonds pay less than 2%. Having 40% of your portfolio earning 2% just won’t provide the returns most of us need. My income portfolio strategy is based on adjusting the fixed income allocation depending on the monthly planned income withdrawal. The required amount of fixed income in a portfolio would then be approximately 18 to 24 months of the planned income withdrawals. The remaining amount is allocated to equity funds based on our investment strategy.

Our portfolio withdrawal strategy then is to withdraw the income needed from the equity (stock) allocation in a portfolio until equities experience a decline of about 15-20% or more. Note that on average a 15% intra year decline likely to occur every year and a 15-20% decline typically 1 in 4 years. If equity declines are 20% or greater and last more than a few months we switch income withdrawals to the fixed income (bonds) allocation in your portfolio until equities recover. There will be sufficient fixed income from which to draw during a typical 6-18 month decline and recovery period. Note that this allocation and withdrawal strategy has not been “scientifically tested” and no guarantees can be provided for the returns you can expect. It’s based on historical averages of equity return and volatility and some common sense that we need to limit selling equity funds if they have not provided the return we are expecting. This strategy “protects” the income you are withdrawing throughout a typical market cycle where the equity market declines and recovers over up to an average 18 month period. One to two years of income withdrawal from fixed income provides you with sufficient protection by not having to sell equities throughout inevitable but temporary market decline and recovery periods. Note that there have been four recovery periods which took longer than 24 months to recover since WWII. Having personally experienced the last 36 month recovery cycle of the financial crisis of 2008 to 2011, many equity funds recovered much quicker than the market and at 24 months were almost fully recovered.

No one can guarantee portfolio returns and it is also possible future market cycles last longer than 18-24 months. However, careful management of withdrawal amounts and investment allocations, an acceptance of the volatility of equities and faith in their inevitable recovery can allow us to build and manage portfolio’s that will provide an income we will not outlive.

I started my independent practice in June of 1996.

I have my mutual funds license as of 1996.
Life License as of 1998
Certified Financial Planner – 1999
Distinguished Tax Advisor – 2005

I am required as part of my licensing and certification to complete 30 hours of continuing education annually and I regularly exceed this number.

Absolutely! Please send me a note or give me a call and I will provide references of clients in similar circumstances.