EP | Wealth Advisors

Investment Management

Our goal is to achieve consistently successful, long-term returns.

Our top-down investment philosophy is founded on the belief that economic activity leads and greatly influences the financial markets. Our experienced team of analysts look at a wide variety of economic indicators and high-level institutional research. We use a global, or big picture, view to determine which investments belong in your portfolio. Then, we combine our conservative philosophy with in-depth research to customize the appropriate plan for each client.

As fiduciaries, it is our responsibility to work with each client to understand their goals and manage their investments towards achieving their desired outcome.

We have a comprehensive, systematic process that allows you to make educated decisions about your money. Thereby avoiding errant decisions based on emotional reactions to market movements, and more importantly, regretful mistakes.

Centralized Decision Making

Historical data and analytical projections are the basis for the asset allocations within all individual client portfolios. Decisions begin with our specialized Investment Committee — where our analysts, traders and portfolio managers develop our investment thesis used to guide client portfolios.  We believe that a centralized decision making process ensures uniformity and consistency within each individual portfolio without any bias of preference or philosophy.  This may occur at firms where one person makes the decisions regarding client portfolios.  Each member brings a unique background to the Committee, leading to a broad array of perspectives and a large depth of knowledge.  Due to the nature of our firm’s independence, the Investment Committee can access research generated internally as well as leverage expertise externally from leading institutional research providers when making decisions.

Strategic Portfolio Construction

We believe the most effective way to generate above average risk-adjusted returns is to emphasize market sectors exhibiting excess return potential while maintaining prudent diversification. Our portfolio management team begins the portfolio construction process with a strategic asset allocation including a number of distinct asset classes and then overlays its tactical asset allocation strategies as market dynamics change over time. While the specific exposures and asset mix are customized for each client, portfolios may include allocations to individual equities and fixed income, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, alternative assets or separately managed accounts.

• Equities: Our equity portfolio combines our macroeconomic, top-down views with our bottom-up fundamental analysis, resulting in a portfolio comprised of our best ideas. We source these ideas from our own in-house due diligence and that of the most well-respected institutional research providers available.  This is a powerful combination that allows us to leverage insight and information from the market’s most informed sources.
• Stock Selection: Our stock selection process concentrates on large and mid-cap publicly traded companies where positive growth is projected to continue. We start by identifying opportunities in market sectors. Then, stock selection begins by isolating companies that show above average return on invested capital, positive free cash flow and other fundamental metrics. From there, our analysts select the companies we believe to be best-in-breed within their given sectors such as high quality management, forward looking corporate strategy and defensible product positioning.  The result is a portfolio that incorporates our best thinking, yet remains diversified when compared to the broader market.

• Mutual Funds: Our fund selection is concentrated on investment management teams and philosophies that have added value and risk-adjusted return.  In addition to traditional domestic markets, we utilize outside managers in specialty asset classes to gain diversified market exposure. These may include larger markets such as international and emerging markets equity through much smaller, niche markets such as High Yield Bonds, Emerging Market Debt, and particular alternative investment styles such as long/short equity, merger arbitrage and event-driven strategies. After assessing the position of the fund, we communicate with the mutual fund to determine our on-going comfort level with the team and strategy going forward.

• Bonds: While current yield is a focus for many fixed income investors, searching for yield alone can often lead to portfolios with unwanted levels of risk.  Credit is one risk we look to mitigate by focusing on higher quality issues, supported by our internal and external research. Another risk is duration or interest rate risk which we look to mitigate by devoting time and research to yield curve analysis. Our taxable fixed income portfolios can invest in a mix of Investment Grade Corporates, Agencies, Mortgage Backed Securities and Treasury Bonds (including Treasury Inflation Protected Securities or TIPS). Municipal fixed income portfolios are managed in the same preservation of principle focus as our taxable fixed income portfolios. Being an independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), without the potential conflicts of carrying inventory or charging mark up fees, allows us to access institutional trading desks globally when sourcing bonds for client portfolios.  This access allows us to have a wider variety of bonds to choose from, rather than merely selecting from a single inventory.

• Alternative Investments: We utilize alternative asset strategies that historically have been less correlated to traditional stock and bond markets in order to further diversify our portfolios. Many of these strategies have exhibited lower volatility, even through times of distress. We believe that the use of these strategies, when implemented with efficient, cost-effective vehicles, should improve the risk-adjusted return profile of our client’s portfolios.