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Why We’re Different: The Fiduciary Standard
Principle #1: You and your financial freedom come first.
It can be difficult to find someone you can trust with your finances, regardless of his or her title
That’s why it’s important to understand why we’re different.
First, we are a registered investment advisory (RIA) firm.
This means all of our advisors must, by law, follow the fiduciary standard. Sounds good, but what does a fiduciary have to do with it?
The fiduciary duty is the legal obligation to act solely in another party’s interests. This means we are motivated in every way to make decisions based only on what’s best for you.
Just as the Hippocratic Oath is the ethical guidance for doctors, the fiduciary standard is ethical guidance for financial advisors. Unfortunately, not everyone in the financial services industry has to follow this standard. Only those advisors who are employed at a registered investment advisory firm must follow these guidelines.
Second, we are “fee-only” — meaning we don’t get paid on commission.
Usually, if someone is selling you a financial product (like mutual funds, insurance, or annuities), their paycheck comes from the sale of the product — not your financial success. This conflict of interest has become such a concern that the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is proposing that all financial professionals adhere to the fiduciary standard.
But we don’t sell products. We provide the ability to get you into investment vehicles — and advice that’s not dictated by the commission. “Fee-only” advisors like us aren’t subject to conflict of interest like commission-based providers are. Our fees are relative to your investments. If your assets grow, so do ours. If your assets decline, so do ours. Therefore, it’s in our best interest to act in your best interest.
Investment Philosophy
To get to where you’re going, you have to define three things:
where you are, where you want to be, and how you’ll get there.
We’ll help you plan all three — and then empower you to execute your plan.
Step 1: Define goals with Life Planning.
True wealth management goes beyond investment strategy and incorporates every aspect of your financial life. Our process begins by helping you define and develop your financial objectives and life goals.
Our Life Planning system uses sophisticated software tools to help you bring your personal vision for the future into sharp focus. Just as importantly, Life Planning ensures we develop a deep understanding of your financial situation, overall needs and goals, risk tolerance, and values.
Our goal is to become your long-term, trusted advisor in protecting and growing your hard-earned assets. We will develop independent solutions for you, always acting in your best interest.
Step 2: Manage Risk while Meeting Financial Needs through a Personalized Plan.
Arkenstone Financial LLC is a comprehensive wealth management firm specializing in providing high-level risk management and life planning services to individuals and families, business owners, and charitable foundations.
Through our family office we provide multi-generational planning and a full range of wealth planning services. We provide you with objective, independent, and customized advice that rests on a solid, simple foundation: the All Terrain Portfolio™, which is designed to deliver equity-like returns with risk-managed, bond-like volatility.
This alternative risk management platform utilizes globally-diversified and non-correlated asset classes while taking advantage of tactical investment methods to control volatility and minimize market risk.
Step 3: Manage Risk While Seeking Reward through All Terrain Portfolio™.
Making financial decisions amid today’s volatile economy can feel like a very bumpy ride. That’s why we developed our All Terrain Portfolio™ — to provide you with a way to manage investment risk and minimize market volatility under nearly any type of market conditions.
Our All Terrain Portfolio™ system allows us to design a customized portfolio for you that matches your risk tolerance and guards against potential losses while utilizing diversification and tactical asset allocation to produce the results you need. The goal is to help produce equity-like returns with bond-like volatility.
A cornerstone of the All Terrain Portfolio™ is the use of low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to minimize expenses. ETFs also give investors new ways to access important alternative investments such as commodities, real estate, and currencies.
The All Terrain Portfolio™ uses an academically based, quantitative approach in combination with broad diversification across five major asset classes. To help minimize losses we employ a tactical discipline of selling individual asset classes and rotating those funds into cash when the asset class breaks through our five-way risk analysis system at the end of any trading week. We repurchase the asset class when its price rises back above the five-way criteria we use for risk management.
This tactic is based on academic research into avoiding major portfolio drawdown through sell disciplines. Our proprietary process is informed by David Swensen’s books, Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investing and Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investing, and adds additional layers of risk analysis and is similar to that developed by Mebane Faber, co-author of The Ivy Portfolio.
All Terrain Portfolio™ features:
At Arkenstone Financial, we’re here to help you reach the financial goals that you’ve set. Give us a call at (719) 559-1919 or email us at info@arkfi.com — we’ll be glad to give you more information on how Arkenstone Financial is different than other financial institutions.