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| OUR MISSION |
To consistently exceed our clients' expectations by:
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Delivering efficient and low-cost investment performance that minimizes risk
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Continuously monitoring and communicating plan progress
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Responding quickly and professionally to portfolio changes suggested by the plan
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Serving each of our client needs to the best of our ability
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| OUR INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY |
While portfolio performance is important, it misses the mark where a client’s particular long-term goals and cash flows are concerned. We offer our clients well diversified, low cost and low risk portfolios, but that is not the best part of our service. Our ongoing advice is focused directly on each client’s unique goals rather than on the micro management of a portfolio that may not be right for his or her life investment plan.
Investors make all kinds of mistakes by not planning. The rise and fall of markets is beyond our control. Trying to anticipate highs and lows through buying and selling is a loser’s game – no one can do it well consistently. Even if one gets out at the right time, experience and research reveals that one is highly unlikely to get back in time to capture the recovery. Between 1984 and 2002, studies show that individuals earned just 2.6% compared to the S&P’s return of 12.2%.1 The extreme underperformance of individuals was due primarily to behavioral mistakes; panic buying and selling at the wrong times.
Likewise, owning a perfectly balanced investment portfolio for risk and return may sound great in conversations with friends, but you might be blithely and blindly headed for tough times or even bankruptcy. We carefully monitor the value of our clients’ asset values relative to their long term life-goals. Occasionally due to large market swings or changes they themselves make in their plans we find that their plan is under or over funded. When this condition arises, we make adjustments to our client’s Wealthcare Plan adjusting it according to his or her priorities as we carefully noted them on the initial review. The adjustments generally require changing one or more of the following; asset allocation, savings, spending, and giving amounts, or the timing of large future cash flows including retirement. We meet with our client and make recommendations accordingly.
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| OUR STRATEGY |
We believe that the volatility of individual shares poses a greater risk to individual investors than is necessary to accomplish their goals. Further, there is also the risk of underperforming benchmarks when the objective is to beat them. Numerous studies have shown that most managers fail to beat the market over time, but one of the most compelling is an article in the The Wall Street Journal, October 5, 1999. “The research is clear: In every time period examined, active management has lower returns than would be expected from index funds. And the results are the same for all equity styles. In his article ‘Mutual Fund Performance and Manager Style,’ James L Davis finds that both small cap and large cap stock funds, both growth and value funds, all under perform risk-adjusted benchmarks.”
We use exchange traded funds (ETF's) such as iShares® and others to represent the asset baskets in our portfolio allocations. ETF's provide diversification and immediate exposure to broad indexes, sectors, industries, countries, bonds, and commodities. Further, ETF’s are more tax efficient than mutual funds as they do not pass along to new buyers unrealized long and short-term gains. Finally, they are less expensive. Mutual Fund expenses rage from 1% to 3%. The exchange traded funds we use rage from .15% to .75%.
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| PEOPLE |
Samuel Q. Bass, Jr., President
Mr. Samuel Q. Bass, Jr. is the president and founder of Beacon Investment Management. He is responsible for the selection of securities in Beacon’s model portfolios as well as the direct management of client model portfolios.
Born in 1953, he has twenty five years of experience investing money for his clients. Prior to organizing Beacon Investment Management in 1998, Mr. Bass was associated with Wachovia (formerly Wheat First Union) as a Registered Representative and a Certified Portfolio Manager. He was a charter member and a production leader in Wheat’s fee-based management platform for the years 1989 through April of 1998. Mr. Bass began his investment career in 1983 as a Registered Representative with Carolina Securities, headquartered in Raleigh. After learning the various aspects of the investment business, his interest focused primarily on managed, fee-based account management.
Mr. Bass holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Hampden-Sydney College, 1975 and a Masters of Business Administration degree from Wake Forest University, 1981. While at Wake Forest, Mr. Bass concentrated in Finance and International Finance and helped a leading professor publish an International Finance textbook.
Following Wake Forest and prior to his career in investments, Mr. Bass worked with First Union for three years as a commercial lending officer in the Research Triangle area.
Patricia A. Hall, Compliance Officer, Office Manager, and Corporate Secretary
 Ms. Hall has over 27 years experience in the securities industry with a broad array of experience, ranging from operations to trading. She has held licenses including series 7, 63, and 65 with the New York Stock Exchange/NASD. Ms. Hall has been with Beacon since its inception and manages the firm's office operations and account-servicing procedures. As the firm's compliance officer, her responsibilities also include oversight of Securities Exchange Commission rules and regulations.
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Please note that we will be closed on the following holidays:
| New Year's Day |
January 2 |
| Martin Luther King Jr. Day |
January 16 |
| Washington's Birthday |
February 20 |
| Good Friday |
April 6 |
| Memorial Day |
May 28 |
| Independence Day |
July 4 |
| Labor Day |
September 3 |
| Thanksgiving Day |
November 22 |
| Christmas |
December 25 |
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