We are an Independent Registered Investment Advisor.

Our firm specializes in managing a diverse, non-concentrated, actively managed portfolio of stocks, Exchange Traded Funds, and options with a focus on achieving superior risk-adjusted returns through all phases of the market cycle.

Discretionary asset management is our core focus and primary service offering.

Any other financial advice or planning is incidental to our asset management services and is offered without additional cost.

No.

We consider consultations with your outside advisor to be incidental to our asset based compensation, and part of our normal interactions with you.

We charge you a percentage of the value of your account. It is automatically deducted and already reflected in all of our performance data and all of the statements you receive. Since we don't invest in mutual funds, there is not an additional layer of management fees on top of our fee.

Our standard fee is 2% (annualized), which is deducted incrementally each day the market is open. Since there are 252 days a year that the market is open, the fee works out to be about 0.007937% per day (2% divided by 252 days). For example, an account that ends the trading day with a value of $100,000 would be charged $7.94 for that day.

We receive a raise every time your account value increases, and a pay cut if it goes down.

We accept no commissions or other forms of compensation from investment product providers or financial institutions for managing your account.

Yes.

Interactive Brokers, the account custodian, charges each account for trading commissions. We do not receive any part of the trading commissions, so we have no incentive to trade more often than our strategy dictates.

Interactive Brokers consistently ranks near the top of the industry in independent third party broker evaluations in the two critical areas of cost and execution.

Also, clients that have IRA, Roth IRA, or SEP IRA accounts will be charged a $7.50 quarterly custodial fee ($30/year) by Interactive Brokers’ Trustee.

All charges are clearly shown on your statements. Additionally, all of your performance reports are net of fees.

Please note that fees charged by Interactive Brokers are subject to change. The latest information on Interactive Brokers’ fees is available at www.interactivebrokers.com.

Our clients tell us that our active management approach is what is most appealing to them. They feel more comfortable knowing that their assets are being constantly monitored for needed changes in a dynamic market.

Current clients are most concerned with avoiding big market corrections, and less concerned with beating a market index. They point out that they worry less about their accounts knowing we are actively making changes rather than just "riding out the storms".

Yes.

We will set up your account, and you will transfer only the amount that you would like us to manage.

No.

You are hiring us to make all the decisions in the account that you open with us. You are always welcome to inquire about our strategies and positions that you see in your portfolio. The daily statement updates, along with our regular communication will keep you apprised of what's going on in your account.

Your account is held at Interactive Brokers, LLC.

The account is established and held in your name (or the name of the trust or other entity that you control). We only have access to the funds in your account for management and trading. You are the only one that can authorize deposits and withdrawals.

Please click here to be linked directly to the Interactive Brokers web site.

The minimum initial account size is $100,000.

You can establish smaller supplementary accounts after the minimum primary account size is met.

It's very simple, and can be completed in as little as 48 hours.

First, you need to complete our Investor Questionnaire; which we use to complete your Interactive Brokers account application. We usually assist you with this document over the phone, and send you the completed questionnaire via email.

Upon completion of the Investor Questionnaire you review and sign our Discretionary Asset Management Agreement.

We send the account application to you for signature, and forward the signed application to Interactive Brokers.

Once the account is approved by Interactive Brokers, it's ready for you to fund with a transfer from another account, a check, or wire.

As soon as it's funded, we start managing it for you.

Yes.

All of your tax documents are provided by Interactive Brokers, the custodian of your account.

We prepare the documents and send them to you electronically in PDF format. In most cases, the information is also available in TXF format for downloading directly into Turbo Tax.

Additionally, you are able log into your account at any time to determine the amount of gains or losses.

Yes.

You can set instructions in your account for direct deposits and withdrawals into your checking account.

These instructions can be either on demand, or set for regular amounts and predetermined time intervals.

In addition, you can wire funds into and out of your account at your convenience and discretion.

You may elect—which we strongly encourage—to have daily statements e-mailed to you.

Even if you're not concerned with daily fluctuations, it's nice to know that all you have to do is check your e-mail to see how your account is doing. This also facilitates communication by providing the opportunity for you to simply reply to the e-mail to ask a question or make a comment. Click here to see a sample daily statement.

We will be providing you with quarterly performance reports that will allow you to evaluate how we've done since you've opened your account. Click here to see a sample report.

We are available to discuss your account at any time. We will proactively contact you at least once per quarter to discuss your account and any changes in your overall financial circumstances.

We manage your account on a discretionary basis—which means we make all of the decisions in the account.

Your account is monitored and changes are considered every day that the market is open. Our strategy is not a buy and hold approach that stays fully invested at all times.

Click here to see our Investment Philosophy page for full details on how your assets are managed.

Yes, if you have a taxable account (NOT a qualified retirement plan, IRA, or Roth IRA), realized gains that occur in your account will be taxed.

The amount that you are taxed depends on your specific tax situation.

We manage positions in stocks, exchange traded funds (ETFs), exchange traded master limited-partnerships (MLPs), and options.

Options are usually used to protect against sudden market moves. We use some option strategies (covered call writing, for example) to generate additional returns.

We do not purchase mutual funds, bonds, or other exotic financial instruments like structured notes, asset backed securities, derivatives, etc.

You are compensating us to manage your assets, not to allocate them to another manager or set of managers that will charge you a management fee on top of the fee that we are charging you.

Mutual funds must manage according to their prospectuses, which usually do not allow a lot of flexibility with cash levels.

The size of many mutual funds prevents them from being nimble in a dynamic market (i.e. raising cash levels on short notice in times of extreme volatility and risk).

We do not claim that all mutual funds and mutual fund managers are bad, but that our investment approach does not support placing our clients' funds into another layer of fee-based management.

In our client accounts, we invest in assets that are tied to the price of precious metals. Some examples include mining stocks, mining exchange traded funds (ETFs), and metals ETFs.

We feel that it is a good idea to hold some percentage of your net worth in physical precious metals. This is not based on an opinion that precious metals are an appreciating asset that you are buying low and hope to sell high. It is founded on the fact that precious metals have been an accepted store of value since long before our fiat currency system was established. We expect this acceptance to continue, and therefore think ownership is a good idea as a hedge against the unknown and unexpected.