Holistic Investment Guidance
Integrate your all of your investments with your financial plan in just a few minutes...
Our set-up process is intuitive, painless, and we'll do most of the heavy-lifting for you.
Don't worry if you don't have 100% of your information correct on the first pass. You can always come back and update things.
Define your goals
Retirement. College. Whatever it is, our money is just a tool to reach our goals.
We recommend investing for goals, and so accounts can be allocated to an individual goal (like a 529 Plan for college), or used for multiple goals.
Our proprietary gildepath provides recommendations that consider your tolerance for risk, ability to save, timeline, and where you hold your investments.
Load your accounts
Input your online account information and we'll import our assets and investment information and apply it towards your goals.
Our software utilizes Yodlee, a provider of account aggregation to the largest financial services companies. You can learn more about Yodlee's privacy and security services here.
We'll send our observations and recommendations
Once we have your information, we will review it and provide an initial review of your overall financial goal strategies.
Meanwhile, over the online portal we provide specific recommendations on what investments to keep, which to change, and specifically which accounts to make those changes.
We also offer our first-time clients a discount on a personalized Advisor Review (partial sample shown in the image to the right). We review your savings rate, savings level, and provide a plan for current and future investments.
Monitor and update
Your dashboard will keep you up to date on your investment allocation and progress. As you need to make changes, we'll recommend them.
As our models change, we'll let you know.
As your glidepath changes, we'll get you back on track.
Need more help? We're here for you
When you need more help with your financial plans, let us know. You have a nationally recognized and award-winning financial firm at your service.
We offer as-needed and à la carte financial planning, tax planning, retirement planning, college planning, etc. (click here for a longer list).
Want someone to handle your investments for you? We have options for that as well that we're happy to cover with you.
How We're Different
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Saving plan review. Where should you save? That requires knowing taxes and your specific benefits and opportunities.
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A holistic view. Most low-cost advisors (and high-cost ones) put each of your accounts into a model portfolio. This approach removes the benefits of asset location which is deciding the investment attributes that would be best for each of your accounts. If each account owns the exact same proportions of the exact same investments, you may benefit from a holistic perspective.
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A proven philosophy. Not only do we have a philosophy, it is one based on science and not guessing, pretending to have a better crystal ball, or gambling with your investments.
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A real, qualified advisor. Some low-cost firms utilize a sales-force and inexperienced advisors. Email us whenever you have financial questions, and we'll do our best to provide an answer. If we need to do more work, we'll let you know.
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Keep your investments where you want. While we have our own opinion on where to invest, you can keep your investments where you choose.
The Benefits of Holistic Advice
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Risk maximizing (Tilt investing) 1 +2.18%
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Use of cost conscious passive investments 2 +0.75%
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Automatic rebalancing 3 +0.50%
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Asset location 4 +0.52%
+3.95% per year
Additional quantifiable benefits
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Tax benefits (tax-loss harvesting, use of and review of tax-efficient funds and tax-advantaged accounts)
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Intentional use of asset class investments, rather than relying on the luck of an investment manager
Non-quantifiable benefits
Not having to rely on guessing, emotions, gimmicks, crystal balls, or the lottery.
How to Get Started
The process is painless.
Process
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Submit your email and complete our online questionnaire.
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Add your accounts online and add your financial goals.
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Our software helps you measure the trade-offs between taking investment risk, saving more, and working longer to make sure your plan works.
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We'll then send a detailed Advisor Review covering your investment goals and provide you with an action plan for all of your accounts.
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The software will recommend investment changes, monitor your progress, and keep you on path. We will send weekly updates on the plan and let you know if there are any necessary actions to take.
1. Clear.Investments utilizes a portfolio approach that seeks to maximize risk-adjusted returns by diversifying our equity allocation over multiple asset classes, and by investing in short to mid duration investment grade bond funds. See Disclaimer page for details.
2. The difference between the average expense ratio of a low-cost, diversified portfolio with an annual expense ratio of 0.37% and the average expense ratio of active mutual funds as researched by William F. Sharpe's publication The Arithmetic of Investment Expenses, Financial Analysts Journal, March / April 2013.
3. Swenson, D. (2005). Unconventional Success. Pp. 195-196.
4. Blanchett, D & Kaplan, P. (September 8, 2012). Morningstar Investment Management. Alpha, Beta, and Now... Gamma.