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THE BENEFITS OF HAVING FLOW MANAGE YOUR INVESTMENTS

Flow’s annual advisory services are “all-in-one,” meaning you get both comprehensive financial planning and investment management.

WHY DO WE MANAGE YOUR INVESTMENTS?

Because our job is to help you achieve the life you want to live. Your investments are one of your biggest tools for achieving that life. We want to do our best in serving you, and that includes making sure that your investments are working in alignment with all your other financial decisions in support of that ideal life.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE FLOW MANAGE YOUR INVESTMENTS?

To a meaningful extent, the investing puzzle is “solved”: Own a broadly diversified portfolio at a low cost, and don’t touch it.

There! Done! And that really is a lot of it. We don’t want to pretend otherwise. Over the years, however, we’ve noticed that we provide our clients a lot of value outside of that when we manage their investment accounts.

Primarily, we make sure stuff actually gets done.

With our help, you really and truly do:

  1. Invest your money, not leave it as cash
  2. Open the necessary accounts
  3. Fund your accounts, both initially and ongoing, from paycheck contributions or lump-sum money transfers
  4. Roll your old 401(k) into your IRA
  5. Roll your IRA into your current 401(k) to enable a backdoor Roth IRA contribution
  6. Convert your IRA to a Roth IRA
  7. Make your annual IRA contribution. In the correct amount. Or avoid making an IRA contribution when you’re not eligible.
  8. See how your investments are performing
  9. Donate “appreciated securities” (investments that have grown) to charity for the tax benefits and also potentially improve your portfolio in the process

When it comes to the outright investing of your money, we:

  1. Make sure you understand what you’re invested in and why
  2. Agree, with you, on a balance of volatile and lower-volatility investments that is appropriate for you, your life, your goals before we touch anything
  3. Make sure new contributions to the portfolio are invested quickly
  4. Aim to reduce your taxes by using “asset location” in your portfolio (i.e., putting investments with certain tax qualities in certain types of accounts with compatible tax qualities)
  5. Rebalance the portfolio (buy and sell investments to bring the portfolio back to the agreed-upon balance) at least once a year so it doesn’t get too far out of balance. This manages the risk level in your portfolio
  6. Rebalance after the stock market drops so that you “buy (stocks) low, sell (bonds) high”
  7. Use the opportunity of cash deposits (or withdrawals) to rebalance your account to our agreed-upon balance of stocks and bonds
  8. Harvest tax losses (or even sometimes gains) if that will improve your overall tax situation
  9. Identify which of your existing holdings, when you transfer a taxable account to us, you should keep, which you should sell, and which are good candidates for donation
  10. Manage and report on your portfolio as a coordinated whole in service of your ideal life

And importantly, if you want to do something drastic—out of fear or greed—with your investments, we are here to discuss it with you.

 You’re in charge, but we want to review any changes in the light of the strategy we thoughtfully created together, to ensure we’re still supporting the life you truly want.