In formulating an investment strategy and composing a portfolio, Fisher takes account of changes in the global market.
Ten Steps Towards a Personal Investment Strategy
1. Getting to know you
Wealth management is very much about forging strong, long-term relationships. This is best initiated by our getting to know one another. On this basis of thorough understanding, we help our clients achieve their goals. Establishing a rapport, and ensuring you feel comfortable with our proposition is important to us and to the foundations of your investment plan. Your first opportunity to get to know us is by meeting with a Fisher Wealth Management Private Client Director who will have a continuing responsibility to you and for the team that looks after your affairs. It is at this meeting that you will also receive Terms of Business which sets out the services offered and charges levied.
2. Analysing your need
Investment strategy and objectives are entirely individual. All clients differ in this respect, and in examining need, we are focused on individuality. Fisher Investments prefers a flexible, yet thorough approach to fact-finding, which works to discover the uniqueness of the requirement. Gaining a clear view of your aims and needs from your investment is vital to its success.
3. Fixing the portfolio aims
Among things Fisher Investments considers when fixing the portfolio aims are your objectives and the terminal value and cash flows you would like to target over your time horizon. We also look at how we should best manage your assets to accommodate your cash flow requirements. We choose the most appropriate benchmark to use as a roadmap to maximize the probability of getting your current assets to meet your objectives.
4. Deciding the asset mix
The investment asset mix – equities, bonds, and cash – will have a major impact on returns over the long-term. Fisher Investments believes that the asset allocation is the most important factor affecting performance in any portfolio; deciding the shares, bonds, cash balance, therefore, is the single most important decision.
5. Determining the benchmark, managing risk
Benchmarks enable clients to gauge the performance of their portfolio whilst providing a framework for responsible investment management and the control of associated risk. Once a benchmark has been agreed, Fisher Investments encourages our clients to stick with it. Frequent changing of benchmarks can lead to poor investment decisions.
6. Shaping your investment portfolio
Having determined the asset mix, which is approximately 70% of the decision-making process, we decide upon the sub-asset allocations. Whether, for example, to invest in foreign or domestic stocks, what markets to invest in, the relative size and valuation of the equities, and so on. Once this structure is in place, Fisher Investments looks to determine the security selection, which we believe has the least impact on investment portfolio performance.
7. Tax efficiency and custody of client assets
Fisher Investments does not hold any of our clients' assets. For security, by using a separate custodian and investment manager clients benefit from a double check on their assets. We utilise a number of custodial relationships and the appropriate custodial situation will depend on your personal tax status. In order to optimise returns for separate account holders, Fisher Investments uses both on and offshore structures as appropriate.
8. Getting invested
Once the decision making is complete, becoming invested is a relatively straightforward paper process of confirming strategy, marshalling assets, liaising with third parties, where necessary, and through a dedicated Fisher Investments administrator effecting transfers and activating the account. We confirm completion and your investment begins to work.
9. Proactive management
Proactive management means several things: firstly, that we continually monitor your investment portfolio and are active in navigating it through all market conditions. Secondly, Fisher Investments doesn't limit itself to a single investment style since we think that this closes doors on consistent gains: our approach to investments is flexible, pro-active and dynamic.
Tying ourselves to one investment approach might be likened to travelling only by car – travelling by car is all very well if there’s a road and not too much traffic, but if we believe a train, boat, plane or bicycle is more expedient, we’ll take it. We also seek to capitalise on the discovery of important and often overlooked knowledge as well as the original analysis and interpretation of widely available information.We also seek to capitalise on the discovery of important and often overlooked knowledge as well as the original analysis and interpretation of widely available information.
There are good years and bad years! Nevertheless, Fisher Investments' proactive investment style strives for steadier navigation through difficult times and greater assertiveness in buoyant markets.
10. Reporting back to you
Managing investment portfolio accounts proactively brings with it the responsibility of keeping clients up to date and well informed as to how their investments are working. Communication is the bedrock of our good relations with our clients.
Clients who join the Fisher Investments Private Client Group are allocated a dedicated Investment Counsellor who is their direct link to the Investment Policy Committee and keeps in regular contact with the client. We send out quarterly reports, but maintaining transparency through clear and personal reporting is fundamental to our picture of the investment partnership. In addition, we hold regular seminar programmes.
Learn more about what makes Fisher Investments unique.
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