Investment Philosophy

Global diversification has historically lowered the volatility of portfolio returns and provided investors with access to the bulk of the world’s current and future economic growth.  Therefore, our asset allocation strategies seek to provide exposure to U.S., international developed, and emerging assets with active tilts to areas of greatest perceived macro opportunity.  The emergence of exchange traded funds (ETFs) over the past decade has greatly increased the investment options while reducing the operational challenges and costs associated with gaining targeted global exposures.

Our analysis starts at the highest levels of the investment hierarchy – seeking to evaluate the impact of changes in economic growth, inflation, and policy on all asset classes. Macro trends heavily influence the business cycle, financial conditions, and investor risk appetite.  These cycles often persist for months or even years.  Therefore, we seek to stay in alignment with key macro themes when making asset allocation decisions.  Our team conducts relative valuation, marking trading, economic, policy, and geopolitical analysis to evaluate the macro environment.   We employ a weight-of-the-evidence approach that utilizes both proprietary quantitative models as well as human analysis to identify opportunities. 

We are also strong believers in time-tested investment techniques such as the power of dividend investing.  As a result, we have designed a suite of dividend stock selection strategies.  Our team has constructed rigorous tools for evaluating individual companies based on a wide variety of valuation, profitability, and earnings quality measures.  This fundamental analysis includes an emphasis on assessing a firm’s balance sheet and free cash flow strength as well as industry-specific metrics and potential red-flags that could affect the sustainability of a firm’s dividend payments.