Overview
VWG Wealth Management implements creative, planning-driven wealth management solutions for individuals, families and small businesses.
As our client, we uphold the following commitments:
- Your interests will always come first
- Your needs will be assessed completely
- You will receive accurate and timely information
- You will benefit from our experience
- We will be relentless to achieve competitive rates of return
- We will be relentless in our pursuit to protect and grow your wealth
VWG Wealth Management’s Investment Process is composed of four essential components:
FINANCIAL PLANNING
Planning drives the entire Investment Process. To fully understand the specific needs of each client, we begin each relationship with a thorough Financial Plan. Often the hopes, fears and dreams we learn about our clients in developing the Plan, and what they uncover in themselves, becomes as invaluable as the Plan itself. This Plan then becomes the backbone for developing an appropriate portfolio, an acceptable risk / return profile, and an overall blueprint for making future financial decisions. All aspects of the client’s financial situation are considered, including titling of assets, tax planning, insurance coverage, charitable gifting, and wealth transfer to successive generations. The plan is clearly communicated, flexible, and updated periodically, in order to strategize the portfolio’s evolving goals of accumulation, income, distributions during, and after life.
RISK MANAGEMENT
Attention to risk is the foundation upon which we design all client portfolios. We seek to attain the returns our clients require to reach and maintain their goals, while allowing them to sleep comfortably at night. We do not subscribe to the commonly held belief that in order to get higher returns it is necessary to take on higher risks. On the contrary we think that by avoiding certain risks, an investor can improve their long term performance. Based on information derived from the Financial Plan, each portfolio is carefully tailored to fit the client’s unique needs.
Diversification is the paramount method of achieving positive long-term returns without undue risk to capital. We live, breath and eat this concept every day. Based on the Plan’s required long-term return, and our longer-term outlook for the capital markets, we develop a broad target allocation for each client’s portfolio. Within this allocation we design a combination of money managers, asset classes and investment styles that are not closely correlated and have proven in the past to produce smoother returns during volatile periods.
All portfolios are regularly rebalanced. When conditions merit, we may recommend tactically “tweaking” portfolio allocations based on shorter-term market conditions or expectations.
MANAGER SELECTION
We use only world-class money managers and investment vehicles, proven in varying situations over reasonable amounts of time. We may use separate account managers, mutual funds, ETFs, alternative investments, structured products and some individual bonds to implement our portfolios. Rigorous ongoing research and due-diligence is conducted on all managers and investment vehicles being used or considered. In keeping with our focus on risk, each active manager selected must either have outperformed his relative benchmark (added “alpha”) over longer periods, or must have outperformed during down periods (superior “downside capture” ratio).
We are firm believers in the use of alternative investments and structured products, including managed futures. Here we are seeking both unique upside return vs. downside risk propositions (compared with traditional stocks and bonds), or non- and even negative-correlation with the capital markets. Costs and liquidity are carefully considered.
When the specific client’s situation dictates, we implement our proprietary discretionary management of bond portfolios, both investment-grade taxable bonds and quality tax-free municipal bonds. Primary focus here is on income, capital preservation and cost control. We also have the ability to manage special requirement accounts with discretion, including balanced portfolios, legacy low-basis stock positions, covered call writing and ETF portfolios.
REVIEWS
Our investment process is clear, understandable, repeatable and easily communicated for long-term success. We perform comprehensive quarterly performance reporting, and we urge periodic in-person reviews. The reviews include overall return, asset allocation and risk management measures, reviews of specific money managers being used and any due-diligence updates. We also overlay the positioning of the current portfolio onto views of current and projected market and economic conditions. Tactical recommendations will be made when merited.
Client reviews include assets “held away” from our client’s primary custodians, and are put in context of their Financial Plan. At least annually during we ask for updates of key planning inputs. We review current income, projected planning needs and life events, updated goals and timelines, tax exposure, gifting and estate planning issues.