Constructing Portfolios
Tailored to You
Our Approach
At The Herbst Group, we know that clients need and deserve more than investment advice. Each relationship is unique, with goals and concerns specific to that client. We learn each client’s definition of financial success and offer a holistic approach to financial counsel. Helping our clients understand and overcome the many hurdles associated with achieving long-term financial goals is at the forefront of everything we do. We devote the time needed to get to know you and tailor an approach designed to meet your specific financial needs. Critically, you have direct access to the entire team, including the portfolio managers.
Each client has a different risk tolerance and deserves an investment approach designed with that in mind. Communication with our clients is a key component of building a long-term relationship that fosters authenticity and goal achievement. We work with our clients to help them achieve their goals, and sleep at night while doing so.
Introduction to our Advisors
Our success is directly related to yours, so a critical first step is for us to get to know one another. We listen to your goals, aspirations, concerns, and fears. Getting to know you better will help our team best serve you, your family, and your business, and to lead to the best possible results. Similarly, you will get to know us. You will appreciate how accessible we are and what a valuable resource we will become.
Designing your Strategy
Based upon your articulated goals and risk tolerance, our Advisors will thoughtfully construct a unique investment strategy and financial plan, designed to satisfy your needs, and achieve your goals. We strive to ensure your comfort with an investment approach that will allow you to sleep at night. Importantly, the lines of communication are always open.
Implementing the Customized Portfolio
When you are ready to move forward, our tried-and-true onboarding process provides a smooth transfer to our platform. Once your account is set up, a service liaison will guide you through setting up an individual client portal, and our Advisors will contact you when your customized investment strategy is ready to be implemented. Throughout the investment process, your individual client portal will provide you with real-time and historical account activity.
Monitoring Your Account
We provide continuous monitoring services to ensure positioning maintains consistency with achieving stated goals. While absolute returns are important, the preservation of capital is a key component of building long-term wealth. Toward that end, we typically employ strategies that minimize participation in market downturns, while maintaining significant upside potential. Our Advisors use a disciplined, quantitative approach to trading and asset deployment.
Periodically Reviewing your Portfolio
Managers and clients both benefit from frequent communication regarding investment activity and changes to the client’s circumstances. Clients are also privy to quarterly market updates.
Clients have 24/7 access to their accounts online via the custodial platform and can receive real-time notifications of trades. We want our clients to be fully informed at all times.
Our Services
Our focus is customizing a client’s portfolio to balance that specific client’s needs and risk appetite.
Cash Flow Management
Confidence in your financial well-being is a hallmark of financial success. As a client of The Herbst Group, you are granted access to a personalized portal that allows you to visually dissect your goals and progress in real time. You will be able to generate items such as a personal balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow analysis and projections. The Herbst Group advisors are with you every step of the way, explaining and dissecting these reports with you. Our goal is for you to develop an understanding of what financial success means to you, where you are on that path, and how we can work to meet your aspirations.
Retirement Planning
There is good reason why many people are concerned about outliving their money. Spending habits are hard to break. Will your investments be sufficient to maintain your current lifestyle or meet your aspirations? Have you saved enough?
While part of the answer lies in the investment performance of retirement assets, it is our duty to partner with you and analyze your current cost of living and projected retirement costs. The Herbst Group provides an array of services to assist in your retirement such as 401(k), 403(b) and 457(b) account management; retirement plan establishment and management; and IRA management.
Risk & Goal Analysis
After an initial discussion of your goals, fears, and concerns, we will work together to accurately gauge your risk tolerance. Your risk tolerance is measured by pinpointing exactly where your comfort levels lie during market volatility in comparison to your goal achievement timeline. Everyone enjoys the ride up in markets, but how comfortable would you truly be during a “correction?” It’s The Herbst Group’s priority to create a thoughtfully allocated investment portfolio that suits your ability and willingness to assume risk and achieves your wealth goals. We manage portfolios accordingly, affording you the ability to get a good night’s sleep.
Portfolio Management
There is no one “optimal” portfolio that suits everyone’s needs. At The Herbst Group, we focus on the relationship, taking the time to intimately explore a client’s needs, fears, risk adversity and overall goals. Realistic expectations are set and communication with the client is ongoing, not just in the onboarding phase. We strive to achieve high risk-adjusted returns, capturing a large percent of upside market movements, while absorbing less of the downside during the inevitable market downturns. The investments purchased for each account will vary depending on the identified goals and risks identified for each client. Risk mitigation will most often be accomplished by writing covered call options.
Covered Call Strategy
Writing a covered call entails selling a call option on held shares. The option sold gives the owner the ability (but not the obligation) of buying the underlying shares at the strike price on or before the expiration date. While it sounds complicated, it could be a less risky strategy than outright stock ownership, with which most investors are comfortable. The call premium received provides some down-side protection and generates income. This strategy can be very effective in dampening volatility.
Holistic Financial Planning
The Herbst Group has embedded state of the art technology that enables our Advisors to partner with you in creating a custom financial plan. We analyze your savings, spending habits, asset allocation and outstanding debt profile aimed at fostering financial wellness and stability. As a client, you will be granted access to this platform to better understand how your financial habits contribute to your overall financial well-being. You can then work with an Advisor to make adjustments as your lifestyle, circumstances and goals evolve.
Estate Planning
The Herbst Group coordinates with certified estate planning professionals to assist clients in maximizing transfers of wealth to the next generation(s). It is our duty to guide our clients through the estate planning process, aiming for a balance between current financial stability and ensuring a financial legacy going forward. Wills and trusts are just starting points. Wherever possible, it is important to include the next generation(s) in an open dialog about investments and financial wellness, ensuring that financial wisdom is passed on, not just financial assets.
Education Planning
Education is increasingly expensive but is also an extremely worthwhile investment. We emphasize the importance of setting aside funds to invest in these educational endeavors. The Herbst Group provides our clients with advisor-managed 529 College Savings Plans, in which funds will grow tax-free when withdrawals are used for qualified educational expenses.
Lending Solutions
The Herbst Group relies on its exclusive network of professionals to assist our clients with lending solutions. These solutions involve working with recommended vendors for loan assistance and/or providing you with the ability to leverage advisor-managed assets on advantageous terms.
Charitable Giving Solutions
The Herbst Group assists in the philanthropic endeavors of our clients by developing charitable solutions tailored to our clients’ desired legacies. Services may include individualized strategic gifting plans, advisor-managed donor-advised funds, and the establishment of individual or corporate foundations. We work with your legal and accounting professionals to invest the funds in a manner consistent with your values and maximize the philanthropical impact as part of your legacy.
Fee Transparency
Investment advisory fees are generally paid monthly in arrears, based on the market value of assets under management at the end of each month. Fees depend on asset type, the scope and complexity of the services to be provided, the level of assets to be managed, and the overall relationship with the Advisor. Clients are generally placed in a wrap fee program, whereby the Advisor absorbs a custodial fee and transaction costs are included in the Client’s overall asset-based fee.
All fees paid to the Advisor are separate and distinct from expenses charged by mutual funds, ETFs, and ADRs (American Depository Receipts) to their shareholders, if applicable. Additionally, securities transaction fees for client-directed or expedited settlement trades may be charged back to the Client.
Let’s start a new tomorrow, today.
At The Herbst Group, we strive to be your trusted resource for generations.
