The following investment beliefs will form our guiding principles when providing long-term investment advice.

1. There is no such thing as “short-term investing”.  The term “short-term investing” is a contradiction in terms.  Put bluntly, a short-term financial focus is speculation, not investing. Investing is a fundamental commitment of your capital to the pursuit of greater goals in your life.

2. Valuations matter.  If you begin “it’s different this time”, you’re wrong.  When valuations are far above historic levels, there’s good reason to be concerned.  Good companies may remain good companies, but they may not continue to be good stocks.  When this basic principle of investing is ignored, you’ll eventually pay a price.

3. Asset allocation is a diversification strategy that works. It doesn’t offer a guarantee against short-term losses, but it’s an effective investment risk-management tool. Sector concentration, no matter how attractive the sector appears, no matter how compelling the arguments, is still speculation.

4. There’s no opportunity for return without some risk. If you don’t see or understand the risk, keep looking.  It’s there.  Once you find it and understand it, it may be acceptable.  But until you identify the risks, they are unacceptable.

5. A well balanced portfolio should be diversified among the major assets classes – cash, fixed income, large and small companies, growth and value, domestic and international.  The only guarantee is that some of these areas will periodically disappoint you.  But you never know which one or when.  Your plan will succeed only if you remain invested across several asset classes.

6. Years of high returns can be completely reversed by one bad year.  That’s why you shouldn’t use short-term criteria to judge long-term results.  That can lead you to unknowingly creating a very high-risk portfolio.  Ultimately, consistency is more important than an occasional “jackpot”.

7. Traditional rules of investing are still true. While they can be adjusted periodically to fit finer points of the current economic environment, never abandon the core principals of diversification, sound values, patience, following a sound plan and maintaining a long-term perspective.  Know the rules and know when you are breaking them.

8. Raw information is not knowledge.  Just knowing the facts won’t necessarily make you any wiser.

9. Market timing doesn’t work.  Moving in and out of markets based on any anticipated changes in price as opposed to fundamental changes in value is speculation – not investing. 

And a final comment – investing your money requires discipline, patience, objectivity and a clear, documented investment policy.