It’s fair to say that your investment strategy is an important component your whole financial plan.
We devise your strategy using a range of different criteria, including:
- The time horizon of your financial goals
- Your investment objectives e.g. capital preservation, income or growth
- How much risk is suitable for achieving your goals
- Your wider personal and financial situation
- Any specific preferences you may have
It’s the engine that powers your financial future and, because of that, it’s important that you make the right investment decisions.
As your advisers, we feel that decision-making responsibility strongly, and appreciate that we need to ensure that we’re giving you the best possible advice.
As a measure of how seriously we take that responsibility, we’ve spent much of 2021 and into 2022 putting together a new investment proposition – the Charlton House International Portfolio Service (IPS).
Read on to find out more.
The need for an investment partner
Since founding Charlton House, I’ve always been adamant that we would never hold client investment assets, nor would we manage our own funds. There are a few reasons for this:
- Independence – we work only for our clients and believe that when advisers sell their firms own products it can often lead to a poor outcome
- It’s a time-consuming process that can easily become overwhelming if you aren’t careful
- We don’t have the time or the breadth of expertise to be monitoring global prices in different assets classes, geographies, and sectors and would rather use a passive approach or utilise the experience of investment experts in some circumstances.
We focus our expertise on detailed strategic planning where we can add real value to your financial future.
As part of the aim to tap into investment expertise, we chose Morningstar to work with as our partners on this new venture.
They are one of the largest and most respected financial service companies in the world. They have a global presence, with an enviable record of investment research expertise, knowledge, and experience. They are also considered to be one of the leading authorities when it comes to formulating views on capital market expectations.
We’re therefore more than happy to outsource some of our investment decision-making to such a well-regarded company.
Meeting our seven investment principles
At this stage, it’s worth outlining the seven investment principles we adhere to when putting together your investment strategy.
- We always put you, the investor, first and never forget it’s your money.
- We’re independent-minded, so have no strong ties to investment managers.
- We believe investing should be a long-term undertaking for you.
- We’re always driven by value and valuation.
- We adopt a fundamental approach to investing your money.
- We always look to minimise costs, so more of your money stays invested.
- We provide holistic portfolios for all your investment needs.
Throughout our dealings with Morningstar, those seven principles have been at the forefront of our minds and formed a key part of the proposition they develop for us.
How you invest is based on risk
The centrepiece of the IPS is a series of risk-based portfolios into which your money is invested.
Fundamentally, investing is all about risk. The nature of markets and funds is that value fluctuates. The rate fluctuation can vary between minimal and dramatic. Likewise, the time frame over which markets fluctuate can also vary.
So, an important issue when designing your investment strategy is how much risk you’re prepared to accept to achieve your investment goals and, related to that, how much short-term loss you can tolerate in pursuit of your longer-term aims.
Not everyone is the same. People have different risk attitudes and those will change as you go on your investment journey.
We needed a proposition that reflected all that.
The Charlton House International Portfolio Service
The outcome of our work with Morningstar is that they have created a series of bespoke and robust risk-based portfolios for us, for both Sterling and US Dollar investors.
Each portfolio contains a mix of equities, bonds, and other holdings. The mix of each is dependent on the level of risk associated with it. In a nutshell, the higher the equity content, the greater the risk.
Importantly, Morningstar’s work doesn’t end with the delivery of these portfolios. They continue to collaborate with us on an ongoing basis.
Each portfolio is subject to comprehensive risk analysis. They are all regularly reviewed and rebalanced to ensure they can meet their objectives on an ongoing basis.
Understanding your investment objectives
A key part of devising your investment strategy, alongside where your money is invested, is to clearly understand your goals so we’re able to develop the right strategy to achieve them.
We’ll always look to diminish any tax liability on your investments, and endeavour to minimise investment risk within the parameters of your risk tolerance.
Once your strategy is in place, and your portfolio put together, we’ll then review it regularly, using a sophisticated cashflow forecasting tool, to reflect changes to your needs and objectives.
Get in touch
If you’d like to know more about our IPS, please get in touch.
You can contact us by email or, if you prefer to speak to us, you can reach us in the UK on +44 (0) 208 0044900 or in Hong Kong on +852 39039004.
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