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 determines 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've done that, 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
client's accounts.
Do you know the minimum number of times your account will be reviewed at Tri-Star? Would you believe it's 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, U.S. and international capital markets, commodity and currency markets. The decisions they make will be used by your investment officer 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 Department of Insurance and Financial Services 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 with multiple questions) that seeks to ensure Tri-Star is living up to the promises we make to you!
It’s a lot of work but worth it because that type of attention to detail provides 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 does mean is that we've 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
Tri-Star will be completely objective when selecting the investments for your portfolio. We don’t receive compensation from any of the mutual funds, stocks, bonds, ETFs or money managers we select for your accounts. 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. The only thing that’s important to us is selecting the very best assets for you.
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" these numerous opportunities. It takes time to find quality investment firms to partner with. Again, hard work pays off. Two good examples are: Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) and Financial Counselors, Inc. (FCI).
For some time, we approached DFA proposing their management of some of our clients' funds. DFA makes sure their philosophy for investing is consistent with the companies they work with (like Tri-Star). As a form of mutual fund management, their success in managing money, in markets ranging from large cap to micro cap to international, gives DFA the advantage 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 choose. Ultimately, they invited our Chief Investment Officer at the time to interview with them. They thought enough of what he had to say about Tri-Star that they had one of their representatives visit our Saginaw office. Soon after the visit, we began working with DFA. Today, when many of our clients review their portfolio they see that DFA is managing a portion of their assets.
However, 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 of the relationship we've developed with FCI. FCI meets all Tri-Star's criteria with a variety of money managers that use tactical and strategic investment approaches for stocks and the management of taxable and tax exempt fixed income portfolios.
To see how that approach would work for you, contact us to arrange an appointment.
