Investing in the Moment
Many investment advisors come from the head, offering mechanical advice backed by charts, statistics, computer programs and technical jargon such as “risk tolerance,” “beta,” “alpha,” “standard deviation” and so on. At MJB Asset Management, we come from the heart. We make every effort to connect with our clients on a human level, to recognize and affirm each client’s financial needs and provide them with investment advice that truly addresses their hopes and fears. We call this “investing from the inside out.” It is an intuitive approach in which we match our clients’ internal needs with appropriate outside investments in a flexible, ongoing process.
In bringing our clients an “inside out” approach, we do away with the adversarial relationship between advisor and client – based on exploiting client fears and/or lack of investment knowledge – that is a staple of the “from the head” advisor. We choose to relate to our clients (as well as employees, vendors and competitors) in the present moment -- with compassion, listening to their words and empathizing with their hopes, dreams and fears. We place ourselves in our clients’ shoes, standing as one with them, changing our perspective to theirs. From that vantage point, we understand precisely where our clients are and what we need to do to create investment strategies that are in harmony with their inner selves.
And though we use our heads when analyzing markets and investments, we do so by staying in the present moment. In the process, we do away with another staple of the “from the head” advisor: the insistence on remaining rooted in the past or lost in the future. We recognize that the future is unknown, the past is past and no guarantees exist that the past will repeat. (If in fact such guarantees did exist, the future would indeed be known.) To rely on charts of past data as a basis to predict the future is to use hope as an investment strategy. We prefer to base investment decisions on current reality: the current economic environment, current market prices, current intrinsic values, current market sentiment, current assessment of risk, etc. Only when an investment offers a reasonable return for a reasonable risk in the present moment do we consider using it in client portfolios. And when the moment arrives that an investment no longer offers reasonable return for reasonable risk, we will remove it from our portfolios.
By staying in the present moment, we are free to embrace each new moment as it arrives, observing any changes in the markets and/or client circumstances and then making any changes that will more effectively move our clients toward their goals. By staying in the moment – by understanding there is nowhere we need to be except here, with our clients, doing what they hired us to do -- we are able to look at every one of our clients and say, “We are with you in this endeavor, all the way, all the time.”
We invite you to leave your past investment experiences behind, to join us as we invest in the moment, from the inside out, and to let us help you on your journey to meeting your investment goals.