Your portfolio may seem to be running at peak efficiency, but how do you know for sure? Regular investment analysis is an essential piece of the puzzle.

Personal financial planning, or business planning, will always be the primary focus of our relationship with you. Does that make our investment management unimportant?

Certainly not!

Perhaps you can think of it this way: financial planning is “the vehicle” that gets you where you want to go, but your investment portfolio is “the engine” that provides the power needed to move the vehicle!

Today’s blog focuses on how our Investment Review Committee (IRC) works to tune up that “engine” to support your healthy finances and portfolio and enable your life of purpose.

Why Ongoing Analysis Matters

Investment portfolios aren’t “set it and forget it” strategies. Like the fictional “engine” we discussed above, they require ongoing maintenance and tuning. When it comes to your portfolio, disciplined oversight is essential to remain aligned with your personal goals and risk tolerance.

That’s where regular investment analysis comes in.

The Master’s IRC: Empowering Your Life of Purpose

Many of you know about the Master’s Investment Review Committee, or “IRC” for short. Four of us serve on this team and our primary purpose is to provide regular investment analysis to your investment portfolios.

The Master’s IRC provides many primary benefits to your investment portfolio management & oversight.

Step One: Laying the Groundwork 

First, your advisor has conversations with you to hear & understand your personal tolerance for market risk and volatility. Every single investor has specific needs, goals, and risk tolerances and we listen carefully to understand yours.

Then, a well-diversified portfolio is built for your situation, utilizing low-fee money managers that have been well-vetted prior.

Step 2: Matching Your Portfolio to You 

Our intent is to always have extremely broad diversification across all markets, however, we then apply several factors, or tilts, to the investments.

When it comes to understanding that “tilt,” picture an old-fashioned ice cube tray.

We want “water” in every cube space, but we intentionally “tilt the tray” to have more water or larger cubes in certain spots in the tray.

During this review the portfolio(s) chosen for you are subject to a round table discussion & review before your advisor recommends them to you.

Step 3: Regular Review 

These portfolios are then reviewed regularly. During those reviews, we ask these important questions:

• Are the money managers staying style-consistent, or have they begun to “drift” a bit?
• Do we need to consider replacing any of those money managers?
• And, of course, how is the portfolio performing relative to the markets and its peers, on a same-risk-level basis?

Step 4: Maintaining Balance in Your Portfolio

Re-balancing your portfolio then becomes the priority! Certain pockets of investments will inevitably outperform others. This changes both the allocation & risk of a portfolio.

While many advisors claim to offer rebalancing, it is often done the easiest way, per a calendar schedule.

Master’s constantly re-evaluates the need to rebalance portfolios based on current market & asset class movement. That ensures that re-balancing occurs whenever advantageous, not just on a calendar schedule.

(In case you are wondering, yes, we recently did a thorough re-balancing to seize the opportunity provided by this volatile market!)

Step 5: Staying Focused on What Really Matters 

Finally, your advisor will have regular conversations with you to determine if your financial needs have changed for any reason. Life is inherently fluctuating, and many things, from a challenging change in employment to approaching retirement, or facing health issues (among many others) can and will change your needs.

If you have any life changes that cause a need to reprioritize, we then re-evaluate the risk level of your current investment portfolio to see if adjustments are needed to more closely align with your revised timeframe, or a changing financial goal.

The Bottom Line: Personalized Investment Review is Essential

I hope this blog post has solidified the importance of regular investment analysis! It is a vital component of your comprehensive financial planning.

Does today’s topic prompt any questions for you?

Contact us, we welcome the opportunity to discuss this topic at a deeper level, personal to you!