Investments … Simplified.
Investing can be a complicated business. But it doesn’t have to be. We incorporate individual securities, mutual funds, private money managers and alternative investments in the combination that best fits your needs.
Tri-Star’s investment team is dedicated to providing each client with:
- Structured portfolios that meet their overall financial needs
- Systematic review of each account providing proper asset allocation, timely investment of cash and detailed review of the quality of each investment
- Solid investment returns – in good and bad times
Structuring Your Portfolio to Meet Your Unique Needs
Studies are conclusive that on average, over time, the asset mix accounts for over 90% of a portfolio’s return. Asset mix or asset allocation is just a fancy way of saying the amount of cash, stock and bonds held in an account. The asset mix is going to determine the amount of cash generated and the amount of risk being taken.
You can see why it’s so important that we don’t make any investment for you until we understand your specific needs. Once we understand your unique needs, then we build your portfolio. How does that work? First, your Tri-Star financial planner will gather your financial information and meet with you so we clearly understand your goals, cash needs and risk tolerance. Your investment officer and financial planner will then recommend a portfolio for you. The assets for your portfolio are not purchased until you and your investment officer agree on the recommended approach. What’s agreed upon is then written down in your Investment Policy Statement so it’s clear on what you expect Tri-Star to accomplish for you.
This past market downturn really brought home the point that taking time to understand a client’s needs, including their tolerance for risk, pays off when the markets drop! A well constructed portfolio helps you feel secure about your financial future.
Systematic Review of Each of Your Accounts
Is it important to you that your financial advisor consistently takes time to review your account? It is to us. In fact, it’s critical. That’s why we’ve spent so much time developing a process that provides ongoing review for each of our clients’ accounts.
Do you know the minimum number of times your account will be reviewed at Tri-Star? Would you believe at least 66 times each year!
Every Week: Every week your investment officer will look at each of your accounts to review your cash holdings, equity (stocks) and fixed income (bonds) holdings to make sure they’re within the targets established with you in your Investment Policy Statement.
Every Month: Every month the Tri-Star Investment Committee meets to perform a macro review of the economy and capital markets, including strategic and tactical asset allocation strategies. They discuss monetary and fiscal policy, US and international capital markets, commodity and currency markets. The decisions they make will be used by your investment officer in seeking to improve the quality of your portfolio.
Twice a Year: Twice a year your investment officer will perform a comprehensive review of your accounts. This encompasses many review functions including reexamining your investment objectives, analyzing the assets comprising each of your accounts, including cost and market values, as well as diversification and projected yields and income. Following these bi-annual reviews your investment officer and relationship officer will want to meet with you and review your accounts.
Every Year: In addition, every year there will be two statutory reviews performed on each of your accounts to satisfy the requirements of the Office of Financial and Insurance Regulations. That’s the department with the State of Michigan that regulates all Michigan banks, including Tri-Star. One review will be by your investment officer and the second by your relationship officer. The State of Michigan has a multi-point examination process (each point has multiple questions too) that seeks to ensure that Tri-Star is living up to the promises we make to you!
It’s a lot of work! But it’s worth it because it’s that type of attention to detail that will provide you with solid investment returns.
Your Portfolio. Designed for Solid Investment Returns – in Good Times and Bad.
What does “solid investment returns in good and bad times” mean? Is Tri-Star saying that you will have positive returns even when the markets are down? No. Does it imply that we will beat the benchmarks for every account every year? No. What it means is that we have developed an approach to portfolio development that enhances our ability to meet each client’s return and cash flow needs and control market risk. When you meet with us we can help you understand the kind of results you can expect from different kinds of portfolios and how our investments have favorably measured up to the weighted benchmarks.
The Importance of Objectivity To You
Did you know Tri-Star will be completely objective when selecting the investments for your portfolio? We don’t receive any compensation from any of the mutual funds, stocks, bonds, EFTs or money managers we select for your accounts. The only thing that’s important to us is selecting the very best assets for you. Keep in mind, our only compensation comes from the fee we charge you based on the value of the assets we manage for you. That means the only way we can increase our fees is to grow the value of your account! In a way we are partners. If your account goes down in value we both suffer. If your account goes up then that’s good for both of us. So obviously we’re looking for it to go up!
Why Our Strong Investment Partnerships are Good for You
We've told you we're objective in picking investments for you. And that's important when you consider the thousands of mutual funds, money managers, ETFs and other investments available in the market place. We have a detailed process for "screening" the many investment opportunities. It takes time to find quality investment firms to partner with. Again, like anything else, hard work pays off. Here are two good examples: Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) and Financial Counselors, Inc. (FCI).
Actually DFA picked us, we didn't pick them. Here's what we mean. For some time we approached DFA with the purpose of using them to manage some of our clients' funds. But DFA wants to make sure their philosophy for investing is consistent with the companies they work with (like Tri-Star). Their success in managing money, in markets ranging from large cap to micro cap to international, gives DFA the luxury of picking who they do business with. With five Nobel Economics prize winners as part of their organization, they have the credentials and the track record to be picky. Ultimately, they invited our Chief Investment Officer, Tim Clark to interview with them in California. They thought enough of Tim and what he had to say about Tri-Star that DFA had one of their representatives visit Tri-Star at our Saginaw office. Soon after their visit we began working with DFA. Today, when many of our clients review their portfolio they see that DFA is managing some portion of their assets. DFA is a form of mutual fund management and they do a super job. But some of our clients need to use money managers.
Money managers actually create an account for a client that is comprised of stocks and/or bonds just for them (unlike a mutual fund where the managers select investments for a group of investors). After considerable searching and interviewing we're proud to say we developed a relationship with FCI. They met all of our criteria. They have a variety of money managers that invest using both tactical and strategic investment approaches for stocks. FCI also manages taxable and tax exempt fixed income portfolios.
To see how that approach would work for you, contact us to arrange an appointment.
