Our Approach
At O'Neil Financial, we have developed a unique and detailed approach to investment planning and money management. We do not just build our clients a portfolio and tell them to "hang tight" for 5 to 7 years and expect them to do well. We actually monitor the performance of your accounts weekly, while paying really close attention to the performance of all asset classes and related benchmarks. It is our job to make sure that you are in the right asset classes and fund categories at all times.
Our 6 Step Portfolio Management Process
When you work with O'Neil Financial, you will see that we have taken the traditional approach to the financial planning process and improved upon it to deliver a higher quality of service to you. Instead of just recommending a long term plan with one set of investment holdings, we work with you along the way to analyze which investment classes are outperforming the others. Then we decide if it would make sense to rebalance your investments to other asset classes and fund categories in hopes of delivering a higher return. In the next few paragraphs you will learn more about "our approach" to wise money management.
Step #1: Help you determine your goals & objectives
The first step of the financial planning process will be to outline your financial goals, objectives, and the desired time frame on making these goals a reality. This tends to be the most challenging step for our clients since very few of them actually take the time to put their financial objectives on paper.
Step #2: Analyze the risk
The next step is to analyze how much risk you will need to take in order to grow your investments to the desired amount. We will need to take into consideration things such as: the amount of time you have to meet your goals, the current rate of inflation, your age, investment experience and what types of financial holdings you currently own in your portfolio.
Step #3: We select the asset categories for you
This is the area of financial planning where we like to "stand out" amongst our competitors. We not only build you a well structured portfolio that is completely diversified amongst the various fund asset categories, but we will also manage each fund category for you and make recommendations on where we think you will earn the greatest return.
Here is a list of the fund categories that we can advise you on:
| Domestic Equity Large Growth Large Blend Large Value MidCap Growth MidCap Blend MidCap Value Small Growth Small Blend Small Value Balanced Funds Conservative Allocation Moderate Allocation World Allocation Target Date Specialty Funds Real Estate Natural Resources Financial Utilities Health Communications Technology Gold/Precious Metals |
Foreign Equity Foreign Small Value Foreign MidCap Value Foreign Large Value Foreign Large Blend Foreign Large Growth World Stock Europe Stock Pacific/Asia Stock Latin America Stock Japan Stock Emerging Markets Fixed-Income Funds High Yield Bond Multisector Bond World Bond Government Bond Emrg. Markets Bond Long/Short Bond Inflation Protected Bd. Ultrashort Bond Municipal Bonds High Yield Muni State Issued Muni |
Step #4: Monitor investment performance
After each portfolio rebalancing, we will monitor your investments' performance and determine how well our recommendations are working out for you. If we learn of any new information that will affect any of the fund categories, or if we think one category may perform better than another, we will give you a call to discuss our thoughts.
Step #5: Review the performance every 6 months
It is important that we meet on a regular basis to review your accounts and track the performance of your investments. Some of our clients make it a priority to come see us every 6 months, while others schedule a meeting to review their portfolio once a year. It is really up to you to decide how much time is appropriate for reviewing your investments, however, we do encourage you to keep a strong working relationship with us at all times to ensure you get the most out of your investing experience.
Step #6: Rebalance investment categories
In the financial markets, you will find that there are always some investment categories that are outperforming the others. It is always a good idea to look at how well each category is performing, and review frequently so we can decide if and when a full rebalancing would make sense to you and your financial situation.
If you would like O'Neil Financial to take a look at your current investments, as well as educate you on the performance of the various asset classes, then click here for a free consultation.
