Managing money is rarely easy. With a choice of thousands of mutual funds, several thousand stocks, a variety of fixed income investments, international funds, and a host of other investments, how do you create and manage a portfolio that is right for you? At Peak Financial Management, we start with an important premise—that each client is an individual unlike any other investor with his or her own unique needs, preferences, and risk tolerance.
We have developed a Six-Step Wealth Management process designed specifically to create and manage portfolios that will help you to achieve your financial goals. These steps include:
1. Define Your Goals
Whether it is retirement planning, education funding, the purchase of a home, or any other goal, the first step in achieving a goal is defining it. So first, we help you define your investment goals and establish a time line to achieve these goals. Assessing, quantifying, and creating an investment profile based on acceptable risk tolerance are key components in this first critical step in the investment process.
2. Determine Your Asset Allocation
In simple terms, Asset Allocation means determining how to divide your portfolio among various asset classes, i.e. stocks, bonds, cash, etc. This, again, is based on your goals, time horizon, risk tolerance, and tax considerations. Most studies show that this may be the most important step in managing wealth and controlling risk in the portfolio.
3. Choose the Right Investments
Creating a portfolio that is properly allocated and diversified is vital to achieving success. We use a proprietary screening method for the selection of mutual funds. We use only no-load mutual funds, individual stocks, and fixed income investments to build your portfolio.
4. Monitor Your Portfolio
The investment world is full of unanticipated change. We believe that monitoring your portfolio is not only prudent but also essential in attaining your desired financial outcome. We monitor your portfolio continuously and make changes as warranted, based on either market conditions or your preferences.
5. Rebalance the Portfolio
Portfolios are rebalanced, generally on a quarterly basis, due to changes resulting from market fluctuations or personal needs, etc. These changes may result in your portfolio being out of sync with your original goals.
6. Review Your Portfolio
Portfolios are reviewed at least annually and compared with your goals. They are checked for progress toward the goals established in the financial plan. At this time, we also discuss any changes or recommendations we may have in order to improve results.