Investment Management

We believe that minimizing investment expenses is paramount to building wealth.

Skyline Advisors provides investment management services where your goals and investment portfolio are matched in a collaborative effort between advisor and client.

It starts with a conversation

We believe that you deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.  We strive to patiently listen and understand your goals at your pace.  We rarely encounter a problem or issue we haven’t addressed before, but every person’s life experience is different, and we will objectively listen to you, but personally engage with you.

Investing is a tool we use to accomplish your planning goals.  We don’t do anything fancy and don’t try to outsmart Wall Street and we ruthlessly analyze costs to keep more money in your pocket.

We can add value to your investments by making sure your asset allocation is prudent, reducing expenses, rebalancing to control risks, and by being disciplined in a tumultuous market that encourages irrational investing.  We can add value with tax-smart investing and withdrawals.  We can optimize your cash allocation to provide safety and income.  We can add value with planning and personal service too.  In fact, that is the primary reason a person would hire us.

COMMON QUESTIONS WE CAN HELP ANSWER

  • How do my investments affect my Social Security?
  • Do I need to complete a Required Minimum Distribution (RMD)?
  • What investments should I sell to create cash?
  • Should I roll out of my 401k?
  • What are my investment costs?
  • Should I invest in a Traditional or Roth IRA?
  • Should I consider a Roth Conversion?
  • What can I do with my employer stock?
  • Should I keep my annuity?
  • Should I keep the funds I inherited?
  • Should I own index funds?
  • Should I own stocks or bonds?
  • Which accounts do I take withdrawals from and in what order?
  • Do my investments make sense considering my goals and objectives?
  • How do I simplify my complicated financial accounts?

PLANNING FOR RETIREMENT?

When you left your old job, did you leave your retirement account behind? We can analyze your company retirement plan account and determine what to do next.  We will look at the investment options, expenses, taxes, the services provided, and the withdrawal options available to help you make a prudent decision about your retirement plan.

“In real terms, an experienced Financial Advisor can offer the strategic planning, discipline, and monitoring that can add up to an additional three percentage points of net return to your portfolio”

–Putting a value on your value: Quantifying Vanguard Advisor’s Alpha™, March 2014

INVESTMENT PROCESS:

Start with a Goal.  It could be retirement, or buying a home, or to pay for long-term care expenses.  Your goals are unique and individual to you. We match your goals to your investments and help you define your objectives, your time horizon, and tolerance for risk.

Have a Plan. We build a portfolio with broad diversification among multiple asset classes. We consider your goals and constraints, market and economic news, asset valuations, taxes, fees and expenses and portfolio risk. We do not predict the future and don’t believe frequent trading or trendy strategies are advisable. We select the investments for your portfolio — these can include stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange traded funds (ETFs) and other securities.  The investment planning strategy is not just about the investments, but more about the Plan.

Monitor and Communicate. We monitor your individual investments, their performance and risk characteristics and make changes as appropriate as part of our investment portfolio management. We rebalance your portfolio to bring your allocation back in line with the target. Communication is key. We meet with you and report back to you your results. Transparency and clarity are hallmarks of our fiduciary duty to our clients. 

Work with an Accredited Investment Fiduciary® (AIF®) who has the education and qualifications that demonstrate a commitment to acting in the best interests of our clients. Skyline Advisors works as a Team on behalf of our clients, building long term relationships based on Honesty, Integrity and Trust.

Skyline Advisors has selected Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. as primary custodian for our clients’ accounts, but Skyline Advisors provides investment management in Bellingham.

PORTFOLIO PRINCIPLES:

Academic Research. Evidence based investing is key to our philosophy.  This provides the foundation for the investment decisions we make. A pragmatic and thoughtful approach requires a touchstone. We rely on the academic research of others to form the framework of our portfolios.

Active and Passive Strategies. An Active strategy involves an investment manager who picks the individual investments in the fund to attempt to outperform their benchmark.  A Passive or Index strategy simply mimics the benchmark. We may use both in investment portfolios.e

Rebalancing. The primary goal of rebalancing is to minimize risk relative to a target asset allocation, rather than maximize returns. Over time, asset classes produce different returns that can change the portfolio’s asset allocation. Rebalancing helps capture the target allocation’s original risk-return characteristics.

Minimize Investment Expenses. This is key to our Investment Philosophy. Our investment advisors are transparent and believe that you should know what expenses you are paying. We look at each individual investment and consider the operating costs, also known as the Expense Ratio. We want to minimize the investment expenses because it reduces the total portfolio rate of return and is often a good predictor of bad future performance.