Reaping the Fruits of Your Labor
At Insight Financial Strategists LLC we are your fiduciaries. Our advice is focused solely on our view of your best interests. As fee only practitioners, we do not take commissions: our interests are aligned with yours.
"A fiduciary standard, basically, means put the interests of the client first" - John Bogle
Our investment practice is based on the academic research of the past 50 years resulting in a focus on long term investing, diversification, and asset allocation based on your risk capacity as an investor and your individual goals.
Academic research on market efficiency guides our thinking: in markets that are very liquid, information is processed and reflected in stock and bond prices too quickly for any market timing strategy to justify the cost. Trying to outsmart the market in the short term is usually a futile and costly endeavor.
Your risk capacity is based on your own risk tolerance, spending and income, time horizon and net worth profiles. Academic research has clearly identified diversification and asset allocation as the main tools to manage long term risk.
"Diversification is the only free lunch in finance" - Harry Markowitz - Nobel Prize 1970
We apply those financial tools to your individual and family needs, including your circumstances, your goals, your opportunities and your limitations to tailor your investment plan to your overall financial and retirement plan.
Costs have a potentially major impact on returns and net worth growth. Costs come in many forms: direct expenses, hidden expenses, taxes, opportunity costs, and our fee. We work to optimize costs to ensure that you get value for your money and that your investments are well taken care of without unnecessary expenses.
"Successful investing involves doing a few things right and avoiding serious mistakes" - John Bogle
In particular, we focus on tax costs and tax efficiency. You already know about the impact of taxes while you are working. In your retirement life, taxes are likely to be your single largest expense, including taxes on your investments. These include income taxes when you take distributions from your retirement accounts, and capital gains taxes on your non retirement accounts.
We use tax efficiency techniques to help you keep more of what you make. They include help in managing down your lifetime income taxes in retirement by balancing your asset allocation between your deferred tax retirement accounts (IRA, 401k), and your other accounts, including Roth and brokerage accounts. In this way, we aim to reduce the bite of taxes coming from deferred tax retirement accounts and encourage growth in other accounts.
"Successful investing is all about common sense" - John Bogle
We also aim to reduce your capital gains taxes in your brokerage accounts with the systematic use of tax gain and loss harvesting. In this way, we are able to significantly decrease the impact of taxes on your investment results. Check this blog post on direct indexing to learn more.
Investment Strategy is as much about how much you keep as it is about how much you make. By using proven investment and tax management techniques, we aim to help you work on both sides of the investment equation.
Check some of our blog posts on investments:
Fake Portfolio Diversification
Many of our clients live in Lexington MA, Arlington MA, Bedford MA, Concord MA, Newton MA, Boston, Brookline, Weston MA, Waltham, Cambridge MA, Belmont MA, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Lincoln MA, Watertown, Wellesley, Winchester MA.