Investment Management
Columbus Street Financial Planning believes in a collaborative investment process beginning and ending with you. Your portfolio should not only be connected to your financial planning but also to your personal goals, values, and what’s important to your family. It should be sophisticated, yet not complicated. As a fiduciary, we provide our clients with access to some of the best investment minds in the business.
Complex financial markets do not require complicated and expensive investment solutions to help you achieve your long-term planning and investment goals. Unnecessary portfolio complexity often leads to unintended consequences. A straight-forward investment approach requires understanding your attitude towards risk in tandem with your need and willingness to assume long-term portfolio risk.
Columbus Street believes in a blend of passive and active investment strategies with a tilt towards value investing in creating globally diversified, low-cost portfolios across asset classes and market capitalizations.
Equity and fixed income markets are generally efficient over the long-term, so a strategic asset allocation utilizing broad diversification helps reduce risk and protects against unforeseen outlier events. Overreacting to short-term market volatility or the most recent investment trend can lead to poor investment outcomes and in some cases permanent wealth destruction. Staying focused on the long-term will feel uncomfortable from time-to-time and may even appear reckless during extreme periods of market volatility. Focusing on long-term results provides investors the best opportunity to achieve their long-term goals.
In recent years, many investors have requested a portfolio design that aligns with their personal values and addresses key social and environmental issues throughout the world. To meet environmental, social, and corporate governance considerations and investors’ commitment to Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) & Environmental Social Governance (ESG), Columbus Street Financial Planning has partnered with Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) to provide low-cost mutual fund portfolios that align with investors’ principles.* DFA’s investment screening is based on extensive research into what drives market returns over time, including the work of Eugene Fama, Recipient of the 2013 Noble Prize in Economics. We use Dimensional Fund Advisors in our clients’ portfolios because of their rigorous and structured process and long-term approach to investing, SRI analysis, and their academically data-driven investment philosophy based on valuation.
*Investors of SRI and ESG strategies accept corporate governance considerations, environmental, and social investment screening will limit investment opportunities.