aggressive core dividend hedged equity small and mid-cap international income

Portfolio Construction

When you invest with Fool Wealth, your assets will be allocated across a combination of actively managed strategies that are exclusively available to Fool Wealth clients. Each has specific parameters and specific goals. Click on any of the strategies below to learn more about it.

U.S. Large Cap Aggressive GrowthSeeks to create wealth by building a portfolio of some of the most innovative companies of our time.

Highlights

ObjectiveBuilding a diversified portfolio on some of the most innovative companies of our time. Acting like owners of a business by being very reluctant to sell.

Portfolio ManagersJeremy Myers, CFA, Tony Arsta, CFA

Who should investInvestors who want a portfolio of businesses that are looking to move the world forward, and who can handle the extra volatility inherent in this strategy. These companies are creating new business models, designing new products and services, and developing new technologies that are changing the status quo. To make the most of a portfolio like this, investors need to have a long-term mindset, as some of the innovations may take as much as a decade to truly take hold in the marketplace.

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U.S. Large Cap CoreSeeks to achieve long-term capital appreciation through a diversified portfolio of great businesses

Highlights

ObjectiveAchieve long-term capital appreciation by owning a diversified portfolio of great businesses.

Portfolio ManagersJeremy Myers, CFA, Tony Arsta, CFA

Who should investInvestors who are seeking a Foolish take on domestic company exposure for their portfolio and have a long-term investment horizon of at least three years.

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U.S. Large Cap DividendSeeks a reliable, significant, and growing stream of dividend income from large domestic companies

Highlights

ObjectiveWe seek to provide a reliable, significant, and growing stream of dividend income from large domestic companies.

Portfolio ManagersTony Arsta, CFA, Jeremy Myers, CFA

Who should investInvestors who identify as “conservative” should consider the Dividend SMA strategy. Investors who may prefer cash-returning equities because dividends and buybacks are historically responsible for a significant portion of long-term total stock returns, because companies able to generate excess cash tend to be established and stable businesses, or because these companies may experience lower volatility than less mature businesses.

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Hedged EquitySeeks to make a diversified portfolio better by improving its risk-adjusted return

Highlights

ObjectiveWe seek to make a diversified portfolio better by improving its risk-adjusted return. In pursuing this objective, we will focus on achieving long-term capital appreciation, modest correlation to other asset class returns, and lower maximum drawdowns than other equity allocations.

Portfolio ManagersBryan Hinmon, CFA, Jeremy Myers, CFA

Who should investInvestors searching for potential for a more attractive return/risk profile, and reduced maximum drawdowns that offer numerous benefits.

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U.S. Small and Mid-CapSeeks to find the best domestic small and mid-cap companies built for the long term

Highlights

ObjectiveWe seek to earn market-beating returns by searching for businesses with strong competitive advantages and management teams with an ownership mentality. We are focused on owning a portfolio of quality, smaller- and mid-sized businesses.

Portfolio ManagerBryan Hinmon, CFA, Tony Arsta, CFA

Who should investInvestors seeking to diversify. Small- and mid-cap companies offer diversification to a large cap portfolio because they can be earlier in their lifecycle, compete in different profit pools, have a more domestic focus, and are often the target of acquirers (though we do not pursue investments for this reason). Small- and mid-cap companies can experience significant volatility, especially those that are earlier in their life cycle. We believe a long-term holding period is required to reap the benefits of this asset class.

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InternationalScours the globe to find great companies selling at great prices

Highlights

ObjectiveWe seek to improve the performance of a diversified portfolio by exposing it to assets located in markets around the globe that have markedly different characteristics than markets of the United States.

Portfolio ManagersTony Arsta, CFA, Michael Olsen, CFA

Who should investWe believe international exposure is appropriate for nearly every investor with an equity portion of their portfolio and a three to five-year investing horizon.

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Fixed IncomeSeeks to pad your portfolio with prudent income-generating investments

Highlights

ObjectiveSeeks to improve the total risk-adjusted performance of a portfolio by adding a different asset class, bonds, to an equity portfolio — and to mitigate some of the inherent risk in having an overly stock-centric portfolio, with the overall goal of making net portfolio losses from peak to trough less severe.

Portfolio ManagersNate Weisshaar, CFA, Tony Arsta, CFA

Who should investInvestments in fixed income are not generally considered as volatile as investments in equities. Neither do they usually have the same upside rewards as equities, and therefore are appropriate as a greater percentage of the holdings in a portfolio the older one is or the less time that an investor has to recover from the downside of a bear market in equities. If you will need the money in less than a year, keeping funds in a cash account is more appropriate than taking on the risk inherent in investing in fixed income.

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Building Portfolio Strategies for Multiple Possible Futures

We focus on finding quality companies that we believe can be the bedrock of your investment strategy, no matter what the future holds.

Our Portfolio Managers can’t see the future (we’re working on our crystal ball technology, but so far, no luck). Questions about what legislation will be passed, how much inflation may spike, how interest rates might change, or how international trade agreements will take shape are difficult for anyone to answer definitively.

But that’s OK! We don’t attempt to precisely forecast macroeconomic trends. Instead, we strive to find companies that we feel can weather any potential storm that comes their way, and take advantage of more bullish periods.  

Our goal is to outperform our benchmarks over rolling 3-year periods, and keep your hard-earned savings compounding over time, so hopefully you can achieve the financial goals you’ve always dreamed of.

Here are some of the tenets our analysts and portfolio managers use in striving to consistently build resilient portfolio strategies for our clients.

Put quality first

Regardless of what’s going on in the markets, or in the world, we do our best not to own anything that doesn’t meet our quality threshold. We assess every holding against our Four Pillars of Quality, and consider only those that receive top marks from our team.

Look to forecast risk

We have to look not just at potential returns, but at possible risks that may impact the investments in our clients’ portfolios. We analyze risk, set probabilities, and allocate accordingly. We identify the major factors we feel might impact each of the holdings and we monitor them continuously, making regular updates to our thesis, and fundamentally asking, are we still on track? Are our clients invested in our highest conviction ideas? Do those ideas still have growth potential?

Study businesses over months and years, not days or weeks

We diligently monitor the companies’ performance, cashflow, new product announcements, shareholder meetings, mergers, acquisitions, and more. We keep careful tabs on the companies' industry environment and competitors in the space. We study potential investments for months, sometimes years. We do not invest based on the latest “hot tip.” We are investors, not traders.

Over time, we develop a thesis around where we think the company – and the stock price – is potentially headed, and we invest based on that thesis. We generally start with a relatively small position, then we wait… and watch.

If our initial thesis holds true, we may add to the position over time.

Winning should compound; losing should not

We monitor companies closely, and constantly update our thinking on their current and future potential. Sometimes, we have to be able to admit when a holding is not living up to expectations, and reallocate accordingly. At the same time, we need to be able to let the winners run.  

We can’t simply sell and enjoy our profits, because the portfolios need to work indefinitely. We hunt for the companies we believe are poised to generate returns year-over-year and make sure our clients remain invested in them. Our goal is for our clients to benefit from compounding growth.

That means we may not beat our benchmarks every quarter, or even every year. Instead, we evaluate our results over rolling three-year periods, because we are focused on long-term growth, not simply short-term gains.

We are confident that in the long run, Quality should reign supreme, and that Quality stocks should be the strongest foundation for building resilient portfolios. We’d love to put this philosophy to work for your retirement or investment account.

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