A dedicated team managing your investments
Our team’s investment committee is an essential part of our practice. We wouldn’t think of leaving this important task to outside money managers. Every investment that our clients own was handpicked by our investment committee.
The committee – headed by Director of Research Peter Ketchand – consists of a diverse group of our experienced team members, each bringing their own investment insights and perspectives to the table. We believe it is beneficial to our clients to have such a robust and well-rounded group of professionals managing their portfolios.
The committee meets weekly throughout the year, using the information provided by our investment research team and updates in the investment world to review and revise our discretionary portfolio strategies.
All decisions are made by the team as a whole and are based on data. This active decision-making process helps ensure that the investments we recommend remain aligned with the objectives of our clients and the current conditions of the markets.
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Our investment philosophy revolves around simplicity (easy to understand what you own and why), transparency (easy to see and identify what you own and easy to understand your returns and expenses) and liquidity (nothing that is difficult to sell).
An in-depth review is done on the macroeconomic environment on a biweekly basis, so the members of our investment committee are well-informed before making changes to our model portfolios. Based on our analysis of the macroeconomic news, we develop a team-specific macro-outlook. This is then used as we make any changes to our asset allocation tilts from the strategic (policy) weightings.
The research team within our committee reviews the model holdings daily for items of material concern and reviews the market and macroeconomic environments. These will be communicated with the rest of the investment committee that day or at the next meeting. The committee will review these investments by conducting an in-depth review, making use of the substantial amounts of information available from Bloomberg, FactSet, Morningstar and various other news sources.
Our investment committee makes model changes when it deems it appropriate, which can range from an asset allocation shift from international-developed equities to U.S. equities, an investment switch within the same asset class due to an investment reaching its investment potential, or securities that have degraded in their outlook.
The research team works diligently to select investments (stocks, fixed income, mutual funds, REITs and ETFs) that are suitable within our current asset allocation and may additionally provide an opportunity for competitive performance.
When the committee elects to shift allocations, the research team will seek to provide several investment options to the committee that are in line with the allocation being shifted. When replacing an investment sold for security-specific reasons, the investment committee will look for replacements that are in the same risk band as the investment to be replaced. The investment committee makes all final investment decisions as a team.
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Inside the strategies that we design and manage for our clients, we perform the investment selection and active asset allocation functions. In this way, we are seeking to build strategies that are suitable for our clients, have the potential for competitive performance, and can react to changing market conditions around the world, as we typically manage globally diversified investment strategies.
There are many managers that will keep the asset allocation unchanged relative to the long-term benchmark of the client – but not at Owens Estate & Wealth Strategies Group. We review the current economic and market environment, collectively known as the capital market environment, and decide whether to underweight (hold less of) or overweight (hold more of) the various securities providing exposure to a given asset class, geography or company size. In this way, we overlay our asset allocation decisions over our individual investment selections.
We view our asset allocation decisions as opportunities to manage risk rather than recklessly attempt to generate additional returns. It is important to note that any methodology that is attempting to mitigate risk or “be defensive” can see an absolute performance that may lag an unmanaged index in any given period; however, we attempt to have risk-adjusted performance measures that remain competitive.
Investments mentioned may not be suitable for all investors. Keep in mind that there is no assurance that any strategy will ultimately be successful or profitable nor protect against a loss. Investing involves risk and you may incur a profit or loss regardless of strategy selected, including diversification and asset allocation.
