Investment Planning + Management

How do we assist investors in solving the investment puzzle? By engineering a sensible investment program. We follow the same disciplined wealth management approach used by large institutional pension plans in the design and implementation of their portfolios. We start this process by scheduling a series of meetings with you.

Planning and Education

We get to know you well before we make recommendations. We discuss your investment goals and objectives to construct a complete financial profile of you and your family. Our discourse covers tax status, liquidity needs, income needs and how long your funds must last. We pose questions such as whether an inheritance is planned for your heirs or do you expect all of your funds will have to be consumed?

Your investment tutorial covers a range of important investment principles and explains why we do things the way we do. Our strong teaching orientation results in our clients maintaining rational investment expectations and having all of their investment questions answered.

Portfolio Design

We focus on engineering a highly efficient portfolio by optimally diversifying among asset classes and differing investment styles within asset classes. We explain how the portfolio has performed in the past. We dig into the details of the design and clearly explain the risk and reward performance of the portfolio.

We focus on engineering a highly efficient portfolio by optimally diversifying among asset classes and different investment styles within asset classes. We explain how your portfolio would have performed in the past. We dig into the details of the design and clearly explain the risk and reward characteristics of the portfolio.

Decision

After you understand our process and our proposal for the investment of your funds, together we can decide whether to proceed with a relationship. We understand we're not the right financial advisory firm for every client. Your investment needs and philosophy may not match ours -- not everyone's does.

If not already in place, we help you open brokerage accounts. We normally use Charles Schwab & Company as a very low-cost custodian. We arrange to transfer your funds and manage the transfer or, if necessary, advise you as you initiate it. The accounts are in your name, not ours. We have permission only to manage the account and have our advisory fee paid from it automatically.

We select managers who are specialists in their asset class or style. Our Investment Committee regularly performs extensive screenings of all managers according to the same fiduciary standards used by the largest funds. As we have discretion over the choice of managers, we change them as necessary.

What We Do For You

Periodic Meetings: Monitoring & Reporting

We provide our clients with periodic performance measurement and review meetings. You also have access to a personal website with a wide range of information available to you 24 hours a day. You receive monthly accountings from the custodian. You know exactly how your investments are doing and have the option of requesting a meeting with us anytime you need to.

Discretionary Money Management

Who has control of your money? You do. We are only your investment advisors. We have you use a financial custodian such as Charles Schwab & Company to hold your funds in a brokerage account. It's your account, not ours. We have placed millions of dollars with custodians such as Charles Schwab, so you pay the lowest transaction cost available to institutional clients. This is a direct savings for you.

We Can't Touch Your Money

TMG never touches your money. You do not send us money, stock certificates or other securities. We have you move your funds from their present location to your new brokerage account. We can and will help with the administrative details. In many cases transfers can be done electronically.

You Give Us Certain Revocable Permissions

We have the following permissions from you regarding your accounts:

We receive a copy of your statement.

We submit our advisory bill to the brokerage firm, which pays it from your account quarterly.

We have discretion to trade your account, which means we can buy and sell securities in your account. However we only trade according to our agreed upon written Investment Policy Statement.

We will buy and sell to accomplish the following:

Implement your initial portfolio design

Manage your portfolio. For example, you have a certain percentage or weighting in a specific asset class, or position. Due to changes in the markets, you wind up having a higher amount in a certain position than the Policy Statement calls for. Since the amount exceeds certain parameters we sell a portion of that position and buy an under-weighted investment in order to bring you back to the portfolio design objectives.

Replace one of the investments when our research tells us the current investment no longer meets our screening criteria. We will, after the fact, communicate the reasons behind our decision to all affected clients.

Respond to a change in your financial situation that requires an overall portfolio design modification.