Beacon's fee-based investment advisory services are an integral component of our overall goals driven approach to advising our clients. We seek to provide you with returns that are consistent, competitive and reflect your specific objectives.

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We work with clients to build an Investment Policy Statement. The Investment Policy Statement (IPS) is a written plan that we create together, to help guide your long-term investment goals. A written investment policy allows you to clearly establish your investment time horizon and goals, your tolerance for risk and the prudence and diversification standards that you want the investment process to maintain. A written investment policy also allows us and you to avoid ad hoc decisions based on short-term market conditions.

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Understanding who you are as an investor is the foundation of the Beacon investment process.

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The following components are key to our investment philosophy:

 

• Asset Allocation - Beacon uses a sophisticated multi-tiered approach to asset allocation. The initial level of diversification is among the three basic asset classes, which are equities, fixed income investments and cash equivalents. An additional tier of diversification adds alternative investments — such as real estate and inflation hedges — which do not correlate closely with the stock or bond markets. This overall degree of diversification is  effective as a strategy to help minimize the two major investment risks — inflation (loss of purchasing power) and volatility (loss of principal).*

 

• Controlling Cost - We believe the cost of your investments is critical in portfolio construction. Portfolios are constructed to represent the asset classes and markets we target at the least expensive cost, relative to fund quality.

 

• Managing Risk - We pay particular attention to mitigating the risk in portfolios. The three main areas that we focus on are volatility, downside risk, and broad, or beta, exposure. We measure these on an individual account level and the overall portfolio for all of our investment advisory clients. As we re-balance portfolios, consideration is given to how certain asset classes will affect the overall volatility and performance of the portfolio.

 

• Impact of Taxes - We construct portfolios with the impact of taxes in mind. We consider the differences between types of accounts that a client may hold: taxable, tax-deferred retirement vehicle, trusts and not-for-profit foundations. Each of these accounts may have differing tax consequences so it is important that a tax strategy exists that takes all of your investments into consideration. We also employ a tax loss harvest strategy when appropriate.

 

• Consider the Big Picture - Your major investment decisions should take into account all other important elements of your finances and your life.