Investment Advice

OUR CLIENTS BENEFIT FROM AN ACADEMICALLY PROVEN investment PROCESS BUILT AROUND OUR CLIENT’S UNIQUE VALUES.

Our Definition of Investment Advice

Our team of investment advisors works with a small number of successful families and business owners in South Denver, helping them protect and grow their investments and go tax free!

Why choose A&I for your investments?

We provide our clients access to:

100+ years of combined experience

Stock research lead by a PhD and former Dean of Finance, with a US Patented process

Fixed income, asset allocation and economic research lead by a team of CFAs

Our Investment Process

We follow a goal-based investing process, meaning that we align the investments with your goals, values, relationships, interests, and other things that are most important to you. Your wealth manager carefully and thoroughly learns these important factors about you and then follows a six-step process to choose the investments and to create your plan for the future.

Our investment committee uses the perspective of outside research firms. We follow a strict belief system in making all these decisions and consistently test our beliefs. Learn more about What We Believe

We believe the right way to invest is to diversify by strategy, remain consistent and invest with high conviction. Each strategy may include individual stocks, mutual funds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), and other investments.

Our Investment Philosophy White Paper describes these processes in detail and concludes with an in-depth look at each of your investment research teams and the academic basis of our beliefs.

What We Know About Stocks and Bonds

Interesting research about investments

Would you rather be an owner or a loaner?

We often ask, “Would you rather be an owner or a loaner?” While there is no right answer to this question, stocks offer superior long-term growth potential, while bonds offer more stability. It is also true that owners take greater risk than loaners. Naturally, we expect to be rewarded for being a partial owner of a diverse portfolio of companies.

Although it may bring up emotions or feel unpleasant, the bounciness of stocks is the very reason stocks produce higher returns than bonds. Volatility is of greatest concern to those who will have to liquidate their investments in a short time horizon. However, for long-term investment horizons, wise investors seek a high rate of return on long-term money.

That said, there is often a place for both stocks and bonds in a prudently designed portfolio. In a strongly rising stock market, some investors are tempted to move to an all-stock portfolio to chase those gains. However, such a move can result in dramatic swings in the portfolio’s value, and may leave the portfolio vulnerable to a substantial drop in value once the market reverses. Your wealth manager will help you find the right mix for your unique situation.

Roger G. Ibbotson and Rex Sinquefield, Stocks, Bonds, Bills, and Inflation. Dow Jones Irwin, Homewood, IL. 1988. Updated annually by Ibbotson Associates. See also U.S. Inflation Calculator for a quick and easy way to get the same information: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

How We Diversify Risk

We manage risk by diversifying within U.S. and international equity markets. We look for investments that zig while others zag; if all the investments have a long-term, high rate of return, then a portfolio’s overall bounciness is less than any single investment and delivers a comparable long-term rate of returns.

Correlation is the way two or more investments move together. The higher the correlation, the more these investments are likely to rise and fall together. The lower the correlation, the smoother the ride.

A common practice in the industry is to use Morningstar or other tools to diversify a portfolio, however, we are different. For more information about this, refer to the Academic Research at the end of the downloadable white paper.

Another common error is over-diversification: holding a large number of small investments, which does not reduce risk nor produce excess returns. Instead, we diversify by investment strategy, choosing concentrated portfolios, and remaining consistent. These concepts are also discussed under Academic Research in the downloadable white paper.

Rebalance Your Investments

Periodically we rebalance the portfolio to make sure it maintains its strategic allocation. Certain conditions can make entire asset classes more or less risky. We assess the structural risk and make tactical adjustments to over- or under-weight assets. We may increase or decrease the weighting to an asset class by 1–20% after much thought and careful research.

In response to changing market conditions, we use investment models/strategies like Market Rotation and SBMA. These strategies potentially reduce risk and increase returns. In a down market, as much as 25% of the portfolio may be hedged, or placed in cash. We may give up a small amount of performance in exchange for downside protection. Refer to the Strategies section of the downloadable white paper for more information.

Stay Invested

Investors often ask, “When is the right time to enter the market?” For a long-term investor, the answer is today. Even though there is always a possibility that the market will go down tomorrow, today is the right day to start investing.

A large portion of the long-term gain in investment in the stock market comes from sharp upward bursts. Just missing the best day out of each calendar year results in dramatically lower returns than staying invested throughout the period. A $10,000 investment in equities started on June 30, 1926 would have accumulated to $45,310,852 by December 31, 2017. If you missed the one best day each year your investment would have grown to $1,879,984.

Athena Invest, Behavioral Advisor, June 2016

Our Investment Philosophy White Paper describes these processes in detail and concludes with an in-depth look at each of your investment research teams and the academic basis of our beliefs.

Some Investment Services We Provide

Investment Advice

Asset Allocation & Portfolio Management

Balance the risk and reward between investments to achieve your real-life financial goals.

Stock & Stock Fund Investments

We build high-quality, actively-managed equity portfolios using academically-proven techniques.

Stock and Stock Fund Investments
Concentrated Equity Owner Guy Espresso

Concentrated Equity Strategies

If you have a large amount of your net worth in the equity of a single company, learn how to reduce your risk, reduce your taxes, protect and grow your wealth.

Single Stock Diversification

Learn how we build an investment portfolio around your large equity position and help you diversify—not double-down (or worse) your risk.

Single Stock Diversification

Stock Option Planning

Learn about how we manage incentive stock options and nonqualified stock options to help you grow and protect your wealth, reduce your taxes, and achieve your personal goals.

Bond & Fixed Income Investments

Learn how our team makes recommendations for the portfolio we call “Foundation Income.”

Tax and Estate Planning
Hedging Strategies

Hedging Strategies & Alternatives

Learn how we carefully select some alternative investments to provide income and growth for some clients.

Investment Performance Analysis

Learn how we perform investment performance analysis and provide our clients access to this information, on demand, with great technology.

Investment Performance Analysis
Financial Planning

IRAs: Roth, Rollover, Inherited and More

Learn how we solve the complex problem of providing retirement income and reducing income taxes.

Annuities of All Kinds

For some clients, an annuity may provide a safe and prudent retirement income. We have independent, expert annuity agents with a huge array of providers to choose from.

Annuity considerations
401k Advice

401K Advice for Individuals and Businesses

Learn how we provide retirement plan advice for our clients 401k accounts, and for employers who want to provide advice to their employees.

Client Stories

Client stories included on this website reflect hypothetical client situations that represent
those commonly encountered by AIWM representatives, they do not reflect actual client relationships.
Phillip Executive
Laura Steadfast
Richards Family

Phillip started out our first interview with a list of requirements for his investment advisor, including many of the questions we provide in our “Questions to Ask a Financial Planner.” Very detail-oriented and private, he wanted a firm that he knew was excellent but exclusive. He wanted privacy, professionalism and expertise. He didn’t have time to micro-manage the decisions. We:

Completed a thorough Discovery Meeting
Prepared the online portal so he could find the information the way he likes to see it—whenever he wants to see it
Made prudent investment decisions, minimizing taxes
Communicated with him often, in his preferred manner (texts)
Prepared the advanced financial plan
Given him secure confidence that his affairs are in order

Phillip is ecstatic about his investment performance, especially during the tumultuous years since he joined our firm. Phillip likes “big ideas,” and we like to share a new investment theme that our team is acting upon for today’s times. Phillip is brilliant, fun and now that he is successfully retired, a philanthropist. He is a joy to work for.

Laura is conservative. She grew up in a military family and she worked her entire career with a high security clearance. She doesn’t mince words and everyone knows how she feels. When she talks about investments, she wants to know when she can spend, and how much, and what are the trade-offs. For Laura, we:

Completed a professional discovery meeting
Laid-out in no-uncertain terms a retirement savings and distribution plan
Coordinated her tax advisor, estate planner, and insurance experts
Made investment decisions that took on the appropriate risk, and no more, to provide her the income and lifestyle she wanted

Laura has been a client for over a decade. When she retired, we implemented the plan. She changed course, sold her home and moved to a different state. We were able to pay for all of this using her accounts, with minimal income tax burden, and maximum security. Laura expresses her gratitude whole-heartedly and often. She is surely one of our favorite clients.

The Richards came to us originally because they were worried about paying for her mother’s long-term care needs. Her mom was coming down with Alzheimer’s disease and they knew nothing about her investments. They had no relationship with her stockbroker. Come to find out, mom did not have a good relationship either—her deceased husband chose the firm years ago! As we dove deeper, we learned more about where they were, where they wanted to be, and the gaps we needed to overcome. We:

Completed a discovery meeting at mom’s house, at a time of day that worked best for the family
Gathered and consolidated the assets
Invested prudently
Put together a plan to pay for in-home care
Provided mom dignity and independence for the duration of her life

The Richards family would go on to inherit her mother’s assets and then, go on to pay for their children’s college educations and weddings. They are pleased with the investment performance and our ability to adapt the investments for so many stages of their family’s life: mom’s income, their childrens’ expenses, etc. Now that the hard times have past, the Richards family is looking forward to their own retirement!

Learn more!

An initial conversation with one of our experts is always free of charge.

Talk with an Expert

An initial conversation is always complimentary. We are often told that our discovery process is the best conversation about money a person has ever had.

Contact Us

Attend an upcoming event

We offer a broad array of events that broaden our knowledge and experiences.

View Events

Download our investment philosophy WP

The right way to invest is to diversify by strategy, remain consistent, and maintain high conviction.

Recent Blog Post

Read this Periscope to learn what today’s politics might mean for our investments and also to get the short, (and long if you like), version of our investment and economic commentary.

Read More

Questions to Ask
a Financial Planner

Choosing the right financial planner requires some homework. You must be comfortable discussing the details.

Download Questions

Recent Investment Advice Video

Learn more about how we provide meaningful investment advice to a small number of successful families and businesses.

Read More