Frequently Asked Questions

• The family behind your family is not simply a tag line. It’s how we operate, how we think about supporting our clients, and why we take stewardship of our clients’ money so seriously.
• We are fiduciaries (not all advisors are fiduciaries).
• We take the time to get to know you and customize an investment plan based on your goals and tolerance for risk.
• We are dedicated to helping you achieve your goals with peace of mind.

Since our very first day in business more than 30 years ago, we have thought of ourselves as stewards of our clients’ assets. As fiduciaries, we must, at all times, serve the best interest of our clients and not subordinate their interest to our own. Clients come first.

We make house calls. We make every effort to meet clients at a time and place convenient for them, whether at our office in White Plains, Manhattan, their homes or another place of their choosing.

Yes, absolutely. We have an in-house financial planning team. Of course, we have great software, but that is no substitute for our decades of planning experience.

Planning not only helps you understand where you stand financially and options moving forward, it enhances our working relationship as well. The better we know you, the better we can do for you.

• It’s less expensive in most cases. Individual managed account fees tend to be lower than similar mutual fund fees.
• You (and we) see every trade, and you know your holdings throughout the quarter. In a mutual fund you only know your holdings once a quarter. You don’t know what the fund manager has been buying or selling intra-quarter.
• We are better able to screen for style drift, which is a fancy term for detailed risk management.
• It can be tax managed. You can realize losses by selling individual securities anytime during the year. You cannot tax manage a mutual fund — you cannot sell losses in the underlying securities because you own a fund of securities, not the individual securities.
• Your taxes are not impacted by other people’s money movements, the way they can be in a mutual fund. You could get an unexpected capital gains distribution every December with a mutual fund without being prepared for it.

Hedge funds come in all varieties. There are hedge funds that are more conservative, and there are hedge funds that are more risky. That is why we do comprehensive due diligence before investing in any hedge fund.