Performance and Characteristics
Understanding Expenses
Be careful how other firms present performance. More importantly be careful how other firms promise performance.
As you know, our “Core Portfolios” will utilize Mutual Funds as an investment vehicle. Our reason for utilizing mutual funds is that we can access the very best managers, in each investment niche, who have very public long-term track records of superior performance. With our mutual fund strategy, and our independence, you get huge diversification (safety) along with our being able to access the very best managers in the entire mutual fund universe. And, with PHH, there are absolutely NO additional costs, thus you pay ZERO in transaction costs when we rebalance your portfolio.
With many other Brokerage Houses, by contrast, their in-house mutual funds are normally much more costly -- and on the higher end of the "expense ratio" charts -- and may be limited in quality and scope across the full spectrum of investment disciplines. If, instead of mutual funds, you were to consider investing directly in stocks and bonds, transaction costs with Brokerage Houses can be very significant. And, in the final analysis, a broker or agent who directs you into a combination of stocks is in reality "building you a mutual fund." Such a combination of stocks will be necessarily limited in holdings and diversification, and the "manager" (your broker or agent) will not normally have a published track record as a fund manager, audited by the SEC, as do the managers of publicly traded mutual funds.
Thus, for our clients seeking the best diversification and safety, our mutual fund strategy has proven to be both comfortable and successful. And, of course, we provide many other significant, value-added services, such as Estate Planning services, our extremely valuable “Annual Income Tax Withholding” service, an Annual Account Review showing how long your assets will last at your current withdrawal level, and timely communications including our National Client Conferences.
Also remember that we always show performance Net-of-All Fees and Expenses - so don't get confused on this topic.