Investment philosophy
Six principles the portfolio is built on, whether you’re still accumulating or already drawing. They don’t change when markets do, which is the point of writing them down.
The principles
The portfolio funds a life you’ve already described. Until the plan says what the money is for and when it’s needed, there’s no way to know what risk is appropriate.
For youWe won’t discuss investments in the first meeting. We’ll discuss the plan.
Forecasts sell newsletters and don’t survive contact with reality. Decisions here rest on long-run evidence about how markets compensate risk, not a view on next quarter.
For youYou’ll never get a call telling you to get out of the market.
Two decisions do most of the work: asset allocation (how the money is spread across markets and asset classes) and security selection (what you hold within each). Both rest on long-run evidence about how markets reward risk, not a bet on what comes next. Diversifying globally is part of it, since a home-heavy portfolio is often less diversified than it looks.
For youYour portfolio is engineered from evidence, not assembled from predictions.
Returns are not in anyone’s hands. What you pay to invest, and what the tax system takes on the way through, largely are.
For youEvery cost gets named, including mine.
The same holding is taxed differently in a corporation, an RRSP or RRIF, a TFSA, and a personal account. Deciding what goes where, and later what comes out first, is where most of the recoverable value is, and it’s the part generic advice skips entirely.
Why you’re hereThe one principle that does heavy work for owners and retirees alike.
Most plans fail at the moment of abandonment, not in the spreadsheet. Part of the job is being the person you call before you do something you’d regret.
For youThe review schedule exists so decisions get made calmly, on a date.