WEALTH MANAGEMENT - Ways That Work.
Wealth Care
Your goals should dictate your investments (not the other way around).
As a firm focused on wealth management, our years of experience position us best to serve as the "Quarterback" of your team of professional advisors - coordinating your financial planning, investment management, risk management, education planning, retirement planning, estate planning, philanthropy and related interests into a cohesive whole.
But more than what we do in our comprehensive oversight, we distinguish ourselves by how we manage money to meet your specific needs. What are your greatest life goals and challenges? What are the big decisions that will help or hamper your success? Beyond the money-making considerations, what personal hurdles do you need to address?
From the practical to the sublime: As your wealth managers, we partner with you, your attorney and your CPA to focus on your financial success.
Evidence-Based Investing
Building Wise Wealth.
Just as our wealth management services are driven by the most important factors of all – you and your personal goals – our investment process is driven by the most important principles that contribute to confident investing:
- Knowing and heeding the scholarly evidence that informs us which market factors are within our control, which are not within our control, and which are best ignored as distracting noise.
Understanding that the best way to improve long-term investment return is to reduce, not increase, market risk. A 40% loss takes a 67% gain to get back to even.
- Optimizing your portfolio of institutional money managers so that you’re investing with, rather than against, the market and its expected returns.
- Managing the “human factor” (i.e., your own behavioral instincts that trick you into making faulty financial decisions). By incorporating the science of investing into our practices, we seek to build not just better portfolios, but better investors.
Showing that investing can be done without being so complex that you do not understand what you are doing, or feel swamped in trying to oversee dozens of holdings.
Participation with Protection
Peace of Mind & Money Matter.
Understanding how to invest your money to maximize returns while managing risk may sound like a difficult task, but we believe our team at Webster Investment Advisors has been effective in implementing this risk/return balance for our clients for over thirty years. Our money management philosophy is based on a model developed by founder Bob Webster that strives to provide the returns and diversification that our clients desire with the risk management they need to sustain returns even in tough economic conditions. “Participation with Protection” is the focus of our service to you, and the core component of our strategy is the use of "non-correlated" investment managers. To implement our "Participation with Protection" strategy, we have hand-selected an entire team of professionals,including institutional asset allocation strategists, distinguished academics and several well-known and not-so-well-known traders in equities, bonds and futures.
Allocation Strategy
The Key: Finding Unique Non-Correlated Baskets.
Investment diversification within asset classes has always been wise, but it may not be enough. As reported in the Financial Analysts Journal, asset class selection accounts for the majority of investment success, rather than the selection of individual investments within that particular sector. The Nobel Prize for Economics in 1990 was awarded for proof that total return increases, and risks are reduced, when portfolios have asset categories that are essentially non-correlated. Therefore, the challenge has moved beyond "don’t put all your eggs in one basket" to finding unique baskets—such as managed futures and tactical timers—that are distinctly different from one another. Even if you diversify into stocks, bonds and real estate, you may not obtain enough non-correlation. However, over-diversification can turn your investments into an “index,” a strategy that runs the risk of mediocrity.
While this diversification concept is not likely new to you, we believe that it is our ability to diversify, in a simple, non-correlated fashion that makes Webster Investment Advisors unique to the universe of investment advisors. More importantly, this real-world approach to you means having a greater understanding, having a greater feeling of confidence and having comfort in being in a strong relationship with seasoned advisors.
There is no certainty that any investment strategy will be profitable or successful in achieving your investment objectives.
Portfolio Specialists
Our Job: Select & Integrate Quality Institutional Managers.
nce client investment parameters are established, we select one or more managers to meet our client’s personalized parameters. Each portfolio may include both domestic and international securities and likely will provide diversification among asset classes including fixed-income, value, growth, small-cap, large-cap, emerging growth, blue chip, world natural resources, non-equity-correlated futures and money-markets.
Each manager actively oversees a portfolio of different no-load funds, ETF’s or individual securities specifically matched to provide the optimal combination of return and volatility relative to the client’s stated objective. In order to take advantage of a diverse variety of investment approaches, our partners include:
Traditional Stock & Bond Managers
Traditional investment managers select the best securities they can find, with a focus on a specific market style (U.S., international, value, growth, large-cap, small-cap, bonds, etc.) and invest in them either in the form of a mutual fund or a separately managed account (SMA). With traditional managers, money is always invested in that specific asset class, with no regard to market-timing or toward shifting within asset classes.
Progressive Tactical Allocators
In addition to using traditional managers, unique to our practice, we recommend that you include "forward looking" or "tactical strategists" for up to 50% of your portfolio. These managers use various techniques in an attempt to provide "participation" when global equity and fixed-income markets are cooperative and "protection" when they are not so friendly. While there can be no certainty that these strategies will be successful, their approach is to attempt to minimize volatility while allowing investments to prosper during more favorable periods.
Tactical Managed Futures
Even if you diversify amongst all the traditional asset classes, you may not obtain enough non-correlation. We believe you need to diversify beyond stocks, bonds and real estate. Our answer to this dilemma is the use of managed futures investments that feature professional money managers who specialize in trading both rising and declining price trends in worldwide hard asset and financial markets including agricultural goods, energy products, precious metals, foreign currencies, stock indices and interest rates. While futures trading can be speculative, volatile and involves a degree of risk, there may be benefits in investing a portion (generally 10 to 20%) of a portfolio in this potentially rewarding area.
Implementation
Webster Investment Advisors offers consulting services for all facets of professional money management, including comprehensive financial planning for families and individuals, and advisory services for specific issues including estate transfer and charitable strategies.
With all clients, ongoing services included are continuous professional management, quarterly account rebalancing (if desired), year-end tax summaries and quarterly comprehensive reviews and investment evaluations provided by Webster Investment Advisors.