UCFA’s web site does not represent an offer of or a solicitation for advisory services in any state/jurisdiction of the United States or any country where the firm is not registered, notice filed, or exempt. Apex Wealth Management Group is a division of United Capital Financial Advisers, LLC. (UCFA), provides advice and makes recommendations based on the specific needs and circumstances of each client. Clients should carefully consider their own investment objectives and never rely on any single chart, graph or marketing piece to make decisions. Past performance of markets and other data are no guarantee or indicator of future results. UCFA does not offer tax or legal advice please consult your tax adviser or legal counsel.
Fraudulent websites (phish or spoof websites)
We urge you to protect your online financial activity and deal only with firms you know to be legitimate. Online fraudsters may attempt to direct you to fraudulent websites via email and pop-up windows. These websites are used to try to steal your personal information. One way to detect a phony website is to consider how you got to the site. You may have followed a link in a fraudulent email requesting your personal information. Therefore, you should not click on any links in suspicious emails or pop-up windows. Please be aware that this site is the only official website of United Capital Financial Advisers, LLC. (UCFA), United Capital Financial Partners, Inc. (UCFP) and its affiliates. We do not allow other websites to affiliate with us, and you should not trust any other websites which claim to be affiliated with UCFA.
At Hotchkiss Associates LLC, we want to help our clients through superior advisory and wealth management services.
Your circumstances, needs and desires are constantly changing. We can assist you in making the choices that help you achieve your one best financial life. Our methodology offers a unique approach to making important financial decisions and provides you with complete financial control. It empowers you with a clear understanding of how each financial choice you face may impact your financial future, as well as your current lifestyle.
Setting the Right Course
Every endowment, foundation or pension fund has a Master Plan that includes their trustees’ best assumptions about contributions, spending and risk. We believe in a similar approach for individuals and families. At Hotchkiss Associates a Master Plan is a living document that changes and adapts over time, providing you with a financial snapshot encompassing the most current asset values, risk assumptions and funding status of your plan. In simple terms, our goal is to determine whether you are currently on track to meet your future financial aspirations and obligations. Every review meeting begins with an analysis of the plan, and every major financial decision or unexpected change prompts a review of the plan. Your Master Plan becomes the starting point for all other investment and financial decisions.
Step 1.
Identifying Your
Financial Life Goals
Every one of us wants to meet our financial obligations without compromise, but we also have aspirations beyond our current commitments. Together we’ll identify not just your needs but your dreams, and work to establish the spending and savings framework that will let you achieve both.
Step 2.
Understanding
Your Priorities
For most investors, both institutions and individuals, there are only 5 aspects of their financial life that they truly control. These five levers can also be called the plan assumptions. They are:
- How much you spend
- How much you save
- The timing of major distributions
- How much risk you are willing to take
- How much of a legacy you want to leave for the people or institutions you care about
We work with you to balance your priorities, applying these five factors in the process of creating your plan. We examine your “ideal” lifestyle against your “acceptable” lifestyle, and guide you in making the right tradeoffs for you, while staying on track to live your One Best Financial Life™.
Step 3.
Measuring the
Probability for Success
We use an advanced scenario analysis system to measure the probability of your plan working. This is a scientific discipline which analyzes 1,000 simulations or financial “lifetimes” using actual market performance dating back to 1929. Included in the simulations are all of the actual bad markets of the last century, as well as scenarios, both optimistic and pessimistic, that have never occurred in market history- but might. The resulting Financial Control Scorecard™ (FCS) gives you exact historical probabilities of how often in your anticipated lifespan you would have exceeded or failed to reach your financial goals. This analysis gives us a sense of your funding status.
Step 4.
Making Adjustments
Along the Way
For better or worse, unforeseen events drive the majority of financial decisions that individuals and families make. These events could be external factors like tax code changes or personal factors like an unforeseen illness or inheritance. Using your Master Plan as a guide, you and your adviser can choose to balance and adjust your control factors over time to address the impact of these events. We start every meeting by reviewing your plan assumptions with you to assure we are still on course.
Implementing Your Master Plan
Implementing
Your Master Plan
Once we’ve established your plan, there are three key steps for implementation:
- Identifying the right custodian
- Deciding on the most appropriate investment solutions
- Applying those solutions.
As part of United Capital we have an ‘open architecture’ investment philosophy, meaning, in plain English, that we will always recommend the best managers and investment vehicles our research team can identify- no matter who offers them. The UCFA analysts are constantly reviewing fund managers, ETFS and other investment vehicles to find the best solution available for a given strategy or market sector. We utilize that information and the access to outside managers UCFA provides to complement our traditional strength in the US equity and bonds markets to create diversified investment strategies that fit your life’s goals.
With your Master Plan as a foundation, we build your Investment Policy Statement (IPS). The IPS outlines your current targeted overall asset allocation, the overall target risk profile and any specific investment areas you would like to include or exclude. Whenever there is a change to your overall risk profile or goals, your IPS is adjusted.
Working with your target asset allocation, which would typically include bonds and stocks from the US and around the world, we determine what role alternative investments like emerging market equities, High Yield bonds, commodities, or market neutral strategies should play (if any) in diversifying risk and return. As your Master Plan evolves over time your allocation should shift as well, and our process is designed to be flexible enough to implement those changes as seamlessly as possible.
Step 2.
Implementing
the Allocation
The allocation can be implemented with Separate Accounts, Hedge Funds, Mutual Funds or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), and we work with you to determine which combination of managers and investment vehicles is most appropriate for you. We objectively allocate across asset classes including non-traditional or alternative investments to manage your risk and try to invest in a way that keeps you well diversified for all market conditions. The combined research team of Hotchkiss and UCFA analysts screen and research the universe of available investment alternatives to find the best way to implement your personally tailored asset allocation.
Step 3.
Oversight
and Reporting
Keeping you on top of what is happening and understanding what your portfolios are doing is crucial to giving you the comfort and control you need. We have state of the art reporting that consolidates all of your holdings into one simple statement no matter where those assets are managed. That information is updated daily and is available to you at any time.
