Guided Investing™ for Retirement

The Guided Investing™ Service Includes:

• Professional Guidance and Analysis: With a top-down approach, we begin with the why. We help you articulate your goals and objectives and clarify what you are investing for. We then build an appropriate strategy to reach intended milestones (e.g., college, retirement, wealth, etc.). This includes taking the time to understand what you would like to achieve, your prior experience, tax status, liquidity requirements, time horizon, and risk tolerance. Considerations for what may be important to you: Preparing for retirement, creating income from your investments, reducing risk, performance expectations (second opinion), building wealth, or a combination of them all. 
• Expert Recommendations and Strategy: Harness the power of our specialized knowledge and real-world experience to navigate the complexities of investing. In this step, we help you find opportunities to maximize your resources, address potential challenges, discuss potential tax implications and help you avoid costly mistakes. Investing is both an art and a science, and together we will define where you want to go and will provide expert recommendations on potential strategies to help you pursue your objectives. 
• Expertly Curated Portfolio: In this step, we go to work building your Strategic Investment Portfolio™. Leveraging foundational principles designed by the Nobel Prize-Winning Modern Portfolio Theory, we curate and invest in a mix of best-in-class investments, bonds, cash and other assets that balance your comfortability with risk and time horizon, it’s rating and our evaluation of the selection. This mix or allocation of ingredients is like preparing a recipe. The right mix of ingredients in the right proportions will determine how much volatility your portfolio will experience and how much its value may be expected to increase. We also determine your custom diversification strategy that includes a mix of subclasses of assets  (i.e., sectors, size, location, valuation, etc.) designed to respond to changing markets and economies in conversely different ways (e.g., In a market correction, one responds by going down, while another responds by going up). In the end, you’ll receive a customized portfolio that you can be sure is structured to help you accomplish your strategic objectives. No more wondering if the “one-size-fits-all” investing options are the right fit or are delivering the right results. Think of us as hiring an architect vs. buying home plans online. 
• Behavioral Coaching: Firm Founder Chris Merchant is a certified Behavioral Financial Advisor™. We recognize that successful investing doesn’t just include following traditional financial principles. It also involves managing the hardwired intricacies of the human brain. Humans aren’t computers, and we sometimes act outside of our best interests and make knee-jerk reactions based on emotional responses (e.g., fear, greed, FOMO, bias). The average person underperforms the S&P 500 or Barclays Bond Index over any given time frame not because of poor investment selections but because of poor investment decisions. Our behavioral coaching is designed to help you enhance your thinking and decipher real threats to your long-term plan from flash-in-the-pan news stories and tabloid selling headlines. Vanguard’s Alpha Study1 found that a good financial advisor can add 1.5% to a client’s net returns solely through behavioral coaching. Over the course of a $1,000,000, 40-year investment, this would yield an additional $800,000. 
• Professional Monitoring: Although successful investing is rarely achieved by weaving recklessly in and out of the stock market, it is important to actively manage your portfolio on an ongoing basis. Our professional monitoring and investment oversight involves periodically checking to ensure your strategy is still in line with your goals, measuring your intended progress, conducting due diligence, and rebalancing your portfolio as necessary (e.g., selling over-performing investments to replace underperforming ones). This will leave you feeling reinforced and confident that your plan is being professionally managed and optimized as you progress toward your future. 

The Guided Investing™ Process is a series of three-to-four strategy sessions that incorporate virtual software and/or in-office technology, custom feedback, collaborative discussions, email and personal communication and action-oriented guidance. 

Guided Investing™ is an ongoing Investment Management relationship in which Hunt County Wealth Management actively monitors your investment portfolio. Our annual oversight includes ensuring your strategy remains in alignment with your ongoing goals, tracking progress to planned milestones, conducting due diligence and rebalancing accounts as necessary. You will receive quarterly financial statements to track progress, and we host at least one 1:1 session per year to collaboratively review accounts and discuss changes. 

1Source: Bennyhoff CFA, Donald G., & Kinniry Jr. CFA, Francis M. (2016, June). Vanguard Advisor’s Alpha: Vanguard Research. https://www.vanguard.com/pdf/ISGAA.pdf

There are many misconceptions about investing. Here are some common ones: 

• Investment Management is expensive and only for the wealthy. Getting quality advice generally isn’t free, and it’s certainly not reserved for only the wealthy. Not everyone has the time to be a financial expert. You may not have the inclination, tools, resources, specific knowledge or desire to successfully manage your portfolio. If you want an easy plan you can execute without having to worry about changes in legislation, the economy and/or within financial products, then hiring an investment manager is a worthy investment! Referencing the Vanguard study featured above, a good advisor can potentially add “about 3% in net returns.”1 So the goal of our fee would be that our advice and management more than pays for itself in measured long-term returns, peace-of-mind, and the avoidance of costly mistakes and missed opportunities. Like any professional, we only exist because we add value, and we want our client’s to feel the confidence of having a thoughtful plan and financial strategy. 
• My Investment Needs aren’t that Specific, A “One-Size-Fits-All” Approach is Fine. We recognize that we aren’t everything to everyone, and there are instances where “one-size-fits-all” investment models may be beneficial when your needs are simple. This may apply when you are in your 20s and 30s and are just starting your investment savings. But as you advance toward milestones such as retirement or when your financial situation becomes more complex, the benefits of having a dedicated investment manager can be tremendously beneficial and may help you avoid costly mistakes and missed opportunities. “One-size-fits-all” options generally select investments based on your risk-tolerance alone, and the advice they dispense is the same even if you have vastly different financial situations and goals. For some, this approach is fine, while for others it could be way off base. You also need to consider your ability to monitor and rebalance as needed. “One-size-fits-all” options generally run on autopilot once your investment selections are made. So ask yourself: “Is the level of risk I am willing to take as an investor the only variable I should consider when planning for my financial future?” We don’t think so. 
• There’s Nothing Wrong with a Company having Proprietary Products. When you’re working with a company with proprietary products or that has product affiliations, you may run into an issue of only being able to access products within their corporate atmosphere. This may cause an advisor to favor or receive pressure to offer one product over another, even if there are better-performing and/or less expensive options available. This is also where the fiduciary standard may come into play. Not all financial advisors are fiduciaries. Some work under what is known as a suitability standard which allows them to not always place their clients’ interests ahead of their own and they are not required to disclose when there is a conflict of interest. 
• Investment Companies are Going to Try and Sell Me a Product. There is no denying that when you speak to many financial professionals within both the finance and insurance worlds. product sales take precedence. From the top-down, many firms are motivated by the transactional revenue of selling you a product. Making money isn’t a bad thing, but how you do it and why certainly matters.  Investment and Insurance products may be necessary to implement your financial plan, and they may be extremely beneficial. They just need to be used as a tool to implement a larger strategy–not as the strategy itself. That’s why at Hunt Country Wealth Management we focus on delivering results from our processes and start by designing a strategy and master plan to help you reach your goals and objectives. 
• All Investment Companies do the Same Thing. Like all practitioners, there are generalists and specialists. If you are investing to prepare for retirement, feel confident in knowing that Hunt Country Wealth Management is a retirement specialist. We focus on the needs of today’s modern retiree. We integrate best practices across disciplines and blend traditional principles (finance, economics, investment management and insurance) with those of cognitive psychology to offer a comprehensive approach that guides clients into making better financial decisions.