Wealthstone Private Wealth Management is a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) Firm, with client assets custodied through Charles Schwab. An RIA is required by law to act as a Fiduciary. A Fiduciary is defined as, “A person or organization that acts on behalf of a person or persons and is legally bound to act solely in their best interests.”
Our Fiduciary Approach
Our main priority is ensuring that we provide financial advice in a manner that puts your interests first, and that requires deliberate, thorough data gathering, analysis, planning, and dialogue. Before we recommend a specific investment strategy, we will take the time to learn important details about you, such as, your vision for your future, family dynamics, wealth profile, personal values, near-term & long-term financial goals, and more. As we develop a database of knowledge about you, we’ll craft a bespoke financial plan that outlines various financial topics, such as: Estate & Tax Planning, Retirement Planning, Cash-Flow analysis, Risk Management, Insurance, Portfolio Management, and more. In addition, your custom financial plan will include multiple different potential scenarios for how your financial future may look depending on certain spending, savings, and investment outcomes. After crafting a financial plan that aligns with your vision for your future, we’ll transition to building a custom investment portfolio that aligns with the plan we designed together.
Investment Philosophy
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Core-Satellite
Our Core-Satellite approach is simple, the “Core” portion of your portfolio is designed to create a transparent, low-cost, tax-efficient portfolio that closely replicates the performance of an appropriate index, such as the S&P 500 or Rusell 1000. Depending on the size of your portfolio, overall net worth and tax considerations. we may own each individual stock in a particular index, while deploying consistent tax loss harvesting to maximize your after-tax returns. When appropriate, the “Core” portion of your portfolio may also include bonds, again with a focus on low-cost, tax-efficient strategies.
The “Satellite” portion of your portfolio may consist of alternative investments, such as, private equity, venture capital, private credit, real estate, and hedge funds. Alternative Investments are typically only available for accredited investors, qualified clients or qualified purchasers, as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC.) Wealthstone, through Charles Schwab, and other key partners, maintains an extensive selection of alternative investment options.
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Cost-Efficiency
We recognize that fees can be a significant drag on long-term portfolio returns. Based on our research, we’ve created an advisory fee structure that starts below the industry average. As a Fiduciary, we intentionally made this decision because although we could charge more for our services based on industry standards, we ultimately decided to stay true to our Fiduciary pledge, which is to put our clients interests first, and that starts with creating a fair, simple, and transparent fee-structure.
In addition, we meticulously review our underlying investment strategies, from our ETFs, Separately Managed Accounts, and Alternative Investments, to ensure that we are balancing cost, and performance appropriately. Unfortunately, this is not common practice in our industry, and we sometimes find that prospective clients have been paying excessively high fees for a number of years. When we present you with an investment proposal, we’ll always outline your total cost, which includes your advisory fee, and underlying investment expenses.
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Tax-Efficiency
Taxes can also be a key drag on investment returns, and the positive impact of maintaining a tax-efficient approach cannot be understated. When we analyze a portfolio, before we consider making any changes, we first analyze your cost basis, and the potential tax liability incurred by any changes we make. From there, we look to utilize tax-efficient investment strategies in the various stock, bond, and alternative investment strategies that we deploy for clients.
When possible, we look for opportunities to actively tax-loss harvest our clients’ stock portfolios and to also utilize municipal bonds for our clients in their taxable accounts. Additionally, when appropriate, and eligible, we look to utilize real estate investments in client portfolios, which can generate a tax-efficient stream of income while further diversifying a client’s portfolio. We recognize the impact taxes can make on your financial future, and we make it a focus to illustrate the various strategies we can deploy to help your portfolio become more tax-efficient.
Q&A
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Absolutely. On a weekly basis, we come out with a “Money Minutes” video which highlights impactful current market events, and our outlook for the week ahead. In addition, we provide our clients with a monthly newsletter which goes into detail about key market, and economic data, along with our views on the market, and if any portfolio changes should be expected. Lastly, we send our full-service wealth management clients a monthly portfolio performance summary which highlights a plethora of important portfolio details and market insight.
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During, and after our initial consultation with all prospective clients, we provide a complete breakdown of our fees, and answer any questions you may have. Please schedule your initial consultation to learn more.
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We can analyze your total costs, while also explaining your portfolio’s overall risk, and outlook based on the current economic environment. In addition, we can also provide a second opinion on whether or not your existing portfolio is appropriate based on your financial goals.
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Our logo is comprised of two leopards protecting a Citrine stone. In many cultures, a leopard represents bravery, fearlessness, protection, strength and confidence. The Citrine stone is regarded as the stone of wealth, and it is believed to bring you additional wealth and financial success. Symbolically, our logo shares our values, which is to protect, and grow your wealth, in a manner that we, and our clients feel confident in, and strongly about. We understand that markets can be difficult sometimes, and it takes a brave steward to be able to navigate those difficult times, and that’s what we strive to do for our clients.