• What is comprehensive personal financial planning?
• What are the benefits of financial planning?
• What is money management?
• What kind of things do you invest in?
• What strategies do you follow when managing accounts?
• How are you compensated?
• What kind of person engages a financial planner or money manager?
• Why should I retain you as my advisor instead of someone else who also has a strong background?

Important additional information regarding these issues is included in my brochure that is available on request.

Q. What is comprehensive personal financial planning?

A. It is a process of formulating, implementing and monitoring multifunctional decisions that enable an individual or family to achieve financial goals.

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Q. What are the benefits of financial planning?

A. When you identify your goals they are more likely to be achieved. Ultimately, once you have identified your goals and have a plan in place to achieve them, you should attain the peace of mind that comes from feeling in control of your life.

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Q. What is money management?

A. Money management involves placing your portfolio with a discount broker so that it can be traded on a discretionary basis while limiting commissions. You do not give up control of your account or access to it nor do you give the right for funds to be removed from your account for other than agreed-upon fees and, of course, the purchase of investments through the custodian broker.

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Q. What kind of things do you invest in?

A. Principally stocks, bonds and other investment vehicles traded on the major exchanges plus mutual funds. Since I am fee-only, the mutual funds used are no-loads or load funds sold without the loads.

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Q. What strategies do you follow when managing accounts?

A. I am a long-term value-oriented investor. That means securities are bought with an eye towards holding them for years rather than months, weeks or even days. It does not mean that securities will be held regardless of threats to their fundamental viability. Value investing entails the acquisition of securities with low prices relative to historical earnings although other parameters may be used as situations dictate. Ideally, they are purchased after a period of distribution that, in typical Wall Street fashion, has taken prices way below any reasonable valuation with total disregard for any potential positives. Short of such an elongated trouncing of an otherwise viable company, price dips also present buying opportunities. In either case, the belief is that the market will someday come to its senses and recognize the value in this, by now, mispriced security by bidding it back up.

For those looking for a more aggressive approach, I have instituted my ETF Rotation Strategy as described in the Money Mangement section. The methodology ranks the items in my unique list from top to bottom using a number of factors that consider return as well as the consistency, the longevity and the timing of the returns. The trading rules I have developed are geared to filtering inconsequential market moves while rotating our holdings as they move up and down the list; we will always be rotating to strength. Due to the “counter-cyclicals” and the bonds included in the list, we expect to be well positioned at almost all times.

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Q. How are you compensated?

A. I am fee-only. That means I get no transactional income by selling products, which poses one of the major conflicts of interest between advisors and their clients. Financial planning is based on a flat fee that is set in advance per a schedule contained in my brochure, available on request. Money management fees are based on a percentage of assets under management and vary with the size of the portfolios.

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Q. What kind of person engages a financial planner or money manager?

A. My clients are a diverse group. There are men, women and couples ranging in age groups from the 20s to the 70s. They include people of modest means to some who are quite well off. Because of these differences, there is no "ideal" or "typical" client type based on age, gender, wealth, ethnicity or religion. A common thread, however, is that they are active, intelligent people who, in most cases, could perform these functions for themselves if they chose to commit their time to them, but they know the benefits of delegation and specialization. They enjoy living the lives they have planned for themselves and they let somebody who specializes in these financial issues handle them. They know the benefits of having an objective professional with whom to discuss their problems and opportunities.

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Q. Why should I retain you as my advisor instead of someone else who also has a strong background?

A. I guess that would depend on who that other person is! There are a number of good financial planners in New Hampshire and I consider myself one of them. Dealing with fee-only advisors is a reasonable policy for most people. You should also match your needs with the planner's personality, specialties and ways of working with clients. I am a generalist who specializes in goal formulation, achievement and money management. Like the medical generalist, I identify areas where you may need specialists and assist you in working with those professionals. Beyond that, many of us are fairly equal in our technological resources. A point of separation is our use of these resources. Many seem to use technology as a substitute for thought. I use technology as an enhancement to thought and only after I have ascertained the inputs, operation and philosophy of the model. It has to make sense! Throughout my career, while others have adopted certain fads, portfolio theories and asset allocation models, I have been happy to borrow what makes sense to me and leave the rest. Now that the literature is starting to question the premises of these constructs, if common sense is a concern, I'll compare favorably.

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