Boston Wealth Management’s Managing Director, Phillip Wong, manages 5 investment portfolios

• Conservative
• Moderately Conservative
• Moderate
• Moderate Aggressive
  
• All Equity

Boston Wealth Management determines its investment decisions by entwining both Fundamental analysis, and the Point & Figure methodology. These methodologies are used to select and trade investment in our "Portfolio Management".

Fundamental analysis is used to identify potential target securities. Fundamental analysis identifies companies that are leaders in their asset class with strong growth potential based on market and economic conditions. The Point & Figure methodology has been around for over 100 years. One of the first proponents of the methodology was Charles Dow, the first editor of the Wall Street Journal. Charles Dow was a fundamentalist at heart, yet he understood the importance of the supply and demand relationship in any stock. The Point & Figure methodology is just a logical, organized way of recording the forces of supply and demand. BWM has taken this time-tested approach to its Portfolio Management along with the Fundamental analysis to build the 5 portfolios. 

For each client, the Boston Wealth Management team identifies the short and long-term objectives of the client and invests in the “3 portfolio Design” strategy.  The 3 Portfolio Design separates one’s assets into funding goals that help protect against withdrawals during a market decline.

To help ameliorate the declines experienced during a bear market, the investment community has long advocated diversifying one’s equity holdings across various equity asset classes, such as large cap growth and value, mid cap growth and value, and international stocks. Yet, all the purported benefits of diversification somehow managed to fail spectacularly from late 2007 well into the first quarter of 2009. In fact, despite having their equity holdings distributed across many different types of equities, the declines in investors’ overall equity portfolio value over the period were unprecedented in the modern era.  This is the reason behind the “3 Portfolio Design” as we believe it will allow us to best manage market volatility and longevity. Below is a more detail description of our firm’s philosophy towards managing and guiding clients through their golden years.

Portfolio 1 is designed to give our clients a time frame of 1-10 years of withdrawal while seeking to minimize volatility. The client and BWM team agree on a portion of the client’s assets needs to fund their retirement goals over the next 5 – 10 years.  The reason for this is the investments are invested in an income stage, with a higher percentage of fixed income and alternative investments (gold, utilities, energy, materials and REIT’s) are used in its holdings. These investments have a lower performance correlation with the stock market. Therefore, this portfolio should not be as impacted by large market movements.  The goal of this portfolio is to have income sufficiently funded for the beginning years of retirement, which should deter one from abandoning their overall financial plan.

Portfolio 2 usually will cover years 11 to 25 of an individual's retirement. This allows the assets to be more diverse and its portfolio holdings with a greater percentage of stock. Having more holdings in stocks will cause this portfolio to have ups and downs because of the high correlation that stocks have with the economy and their level of risk.  However, during down markets, the client will draw on portfolio 1 which should have minimized market fluctuation.  Portfolio 2’s targeted invested time frame is managed as moderate growth with the goal to eventually migrate into a style similar to portfolio #1 once the original portfolio 1 value is depleted.

Portfolio 3 is designed to cover years 25+ of retirement. This tends to be the smallest starting portfolio value.  Portfolio 3 is designed to grow a small balance aggressively to fund the potential outer limits of an individual’s retirement. This time horizon allows the portfolio to hold a higher concentration of stocks. Portfolio 3 would have a greater correlation with the economy and much greater volatility. The investment time frame will allow this portfolio to be manage with a moderate/aggressive to aggressive growth with the goal to eventually migrate into a style similar to portfolio #2 and then into portfolio #1. Therefore, if the individual started retirement at age 62 it will give them a greater probability of sufficient income into their golden age of 90 plus. 

Our team at Boston Wealth Management has been implementing the 3 Portfolio Design for our clients for over 20 years. This strategy is applicable to clients of any starting retirement value.

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