Source of the intelligence
A roadmap for success
The core of our investment process revolves around the idea buying assets (stocks, bonds, etc.) while they are temporarily discounted by market forces. After acquisition, we wait patiently for the market to 're-price' these securities back up to their 'intrisic value'.
Disciplined research
Our work to uncover 'highest quality assets' is never done. Using our experience and the backdrop of history, we maintain a selected group of assets picked to meet our investment requirements.
Develop a tax plan
Once investment assets are selected, ensuring ownership in the right kind of tax account is essential. Numerous layers of tax complexities can accentuate or erode portfolio performance, depending on the build of the plan.
Monitoring macroeconomics and your plan
A completed plan needs to be tested regularly against current market conditions to ensure it stays on track in the goal of providing financial security.
Wealth Management Leadership
A system to manage complexity
It takes vision to develop an organized system of caring for a client's investments. We take deep pride in having developed that system over the years, having witnessed it's successes time after time.
We do not 'broad brush stroke' an investment plan by using pre-built portfolio solutions owned identically in every account (eg. RRSP, TFSA, etc.) for the client. Doing this creates tax problems, liquidity problems, concentration risk, and the potential for added volatility or risk.
Instead, a detailed customized plan is built where assets are hand-picked for inclusion into the right account type for the best long term tax plan. This requires a certain level of complexity, and cannot be simplified by more general recommendations. Canada's tax system is complex, so our portfolio solutions must also be in order to take maximum advantage of the tax rules in place. Burgett Financial's selection of an investment dealer capable of supporting plans of this complexity is also very important to our client's success.
It's in the details...trading, re-balancing, etc.
Our vision is to create a platinum wealth experience for every client. Financial planning 101 dictates we perform the following normal processes as required to keep a client's portfolio on track to reach their goals:
- re-balancing during client reviews
- frequent portfolio analysis to ensure the plan is on track
- ensuring appropriate amounts of liquid investments (i.e. cash or government bonds) are in the portfolio to provide liquidity
- frequent 'test for quality' on any investment asset held within a client account.
- addition/removal of assets for various reasons to continue to meet client goals. These reasons include: material change in investment asset or quality, changing of client goals, macroeconomic changes, tax changes, etc.
Should any changes be required, we will pro-actively review these changes with you, and upon your approval, will make the changes.
Normal market activity and life changes normally should result in changes being made in a portfolio and financial plan every 1-3 years. To us, these are important services that you should expect from your Advisor, and we are committed to always providing them to our valued clients.
Over-risked: a primer
Since not all asset categories are correlated, you can see wide variances in performance from year to year. For example, you may see an equity position increase by +20% while a bond position increases just +1% over the same calendar year. This divergence creates risk, and re-balancing the portfolio needs to occur to mitigate this risk.
Without re-balancing, risk creeps into a portfolio as assets drift away from their target weightings. An investor who initially set up a portfolio of 40% bond/60% stocks, may see their current weighting at 25%/75% on the back of some strong years in the stock market. While the investor is doing well, their portfolio is actually more risky than it was at inception with an inflated equity weighting of 75%.
For someone with a long time horizon, this may not be a big issue, but for those at, near or into retirement, this is a massive concern. Stock market meltdowns of 30% or more can occur suddenly, so re-testing and re-balancing investments within a portfolio frequently just makes sense.