Portfolio Management
Experienced Tailored Dynamic
At Imperia Wealth Management, we take a highly dynamic and tactical approach to portfolio management. Our goal is to add value at each step of the portfolio management process. For each and every investor, the process of portfolio management is actually universal, whether self-managing or working with a professional, like IWM. The process is comprised of three decisions that must be made for your investable assets. We further segment those decisions into two distinct phases, which we outline below.
1) Design Phase : The blueprint for your portfolio.
Asset Allocation (Stocks, Bonds, Cash, Alternatives)
Asset allocation is, by far, the most important and impactful decision to be made for one’s portfolio. Studies have shown that ~70% of a portfolio’s actual return is directly attributable to the decision as to how much of a portfolio is invested in Stocks, Bonds, Cash and/or Alternatives and the tactical adjustments made to that mix over time. At the highest level, we make this decision by performing institutional quality macroeconomic and market research, in conjunction with the strategists and analysts at 100's of institutional level investment firms in the world. This collaborative approach to capital markets research allows us to gather a wide range of data inputs providing both qualitative and quantitative data points with regards to current market conditions. We then perform additional internal research utilizing a multitude of proprietary data-points and indicators developed from our understanding of market history, behavioral factors, and leading market indicators, to determine if tactical changes are warranted for your portfolio.
Sub-Asset Allocation (Category/Sector Weightings)
Sub-Asset Allocation is the second most important and impactful decision to be made for one’s portfolio, accounting for ~ 20% of a portfolio’s actual return over time. Once the appropriate asset allocation is determined for your portfolio, it's time to allocate among the various types & categories of stocks, bonds, bond alternatives and/or cash to use to build out that asset allocation. Based on the same collaborative research methodology mentioned under Asset Allocation, above, we determine
what we believe is the most advantageous blend of country, sector, size and style and adjust as warranted throughout the market cycle between:
- Large Cap vs. Small Cap
- Value vs. Growth
- Foreign vs. Domestic
- Tech vs. Health
On the bond side, we need to decide on the proper duration, issuer type, credit quality and/or taxable vs. non-taxable, or bond alternatives. Much like stocks, these
categories will go in and out of favor over time, requiring constant monitoring and adjustment, when warranted, based on the insights we’ve generated after careful and
detailed research into the fixed income markets. Like the Asset Allocation decision, this research is informed by collaboration with the strategists and analysts at 100's of the top institutional investment firms in the world.
2) Construction Phase
Security Selection
The final step in the portfolio management process is the selection of specific securities. This can be done actively (individual stocks, bonds and/or alternatives) and/or passively (Sector Specific ETF's) based on your individual circumstances.
Active: Individual Stocks, Bonds, and/or Alternatives
For clients with account asset levels sufficient to properly diversify in individucal securities, we directly engage several investment firms from the 100's we reference in Phase 1, above, to identify and purchase individual securities on your behalf, with a simple mandate.... outperform your respective sector or category, net of fees, over time.
Passive: Sector Specific ETF's
For clients who need more diversification than their account asset levels could achieve in idividual securities, we will use low-cost, sector specific ETF's to construct the portfolio blueprint we designed in phase 1 above.
In summary, our Wealth Manager, Mike Bellody, is the chief architect of the portfolios we design for our clients and we focus all of our efforts in Phase 1 of the Portfolio Management Process described above. We then utilize the expertise of top- level investment management firms and/or ETF's to implement those strategies with the goal of out-performing for our clients over the long-term, while effectively managing risk along the way.