The truth is that many financially savvy people CAN manage their investments themselves if they had the time necessary to devote to monitoring their investments and the discipline needed to adhere to a well thought out asset allocation plan. The fact is that most people just don’t have that kind of time available and even if they did, many often allow the emotions of riding the market ups and downs to dictate their investment strategy. Moreover, a person’s overall financial strategy involves much more than simply investing. We bring a holistic approach to the planning that we do for clients. We incorporate investment management with tax planning and we do it in a disciplined way. We understand market cycles and have experienced both significant market upturns and downturns. We help clients dispassionately adhere to their target asset allocation strategy, reminding clients of their overall goals and objectives along the way.
We are a fee only financial advisory firm. We do not receive commissions, nor any other form of compensation based upon product sales. This allows us to be completely objective when rendering advice to clients as we have zero financial incentive to sell Product A over Product B. We get paid solely for our advice.
Yes, Section 206 of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (“the Advisers Act”) imposes a fiduciary duty on investment advisers. This fiduciary duty requires an investment adviser to act in the best interest of its clients. DBK is subject to the Advisers Act and is bound by said fiduciary duty with respect to client relationships.
DBK does not take custody of client assets. We instead utilize an investment custodian and have partnered with Charles Schwab and Company as our investment custodian of choice. Charles Schwab is a multi-billion dollar financial services firm with offices the world over. This arrangement provides our clients with critical piece of mind that their investment assets are in the custody of an independent third party. It also provides our clients and us with the vast investment research and other resources at Schwab’s disposal. For more details on how client assets are protected when utilizing Charles Schwab as investment custodian, click on the following link.
Generally, our clients have investable net worth of at least $1 million.
The client experience takes place in multiple steps. We first work with our clients to get to know them and their financial and non-financial goals and objectives. We then work with our clients to construct a risk profile and an asset allocation strategy that is specifically tailored to that client and the achievement of their goals and objectives over the long term. We then implement the plan using a well-diversified portfolio of index exchange traded funds and/or index mutual funds. The plan is then monitored and investment accounts are re-balanced as needed throughout the year. In addition, for those clients that desire it (which are most of our clients), we provide them with tax planning and income tax return preparation services as part of the overall relationship. Lastly, we meet and communicate with our clients regularly throughout the year to review investment performance, discuss their investment strategy, and provide planning advice.
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