Our Investment Principles

The wise route to your objectives.

At Merrill Financial Associates, an overarching theme runs through the management of your assets and the guidance we provide to you: We believe that principles are always true, always relevant, and always the smart route toward pursuing your financial goals.

Every investment recommendation we make must meet our four guiding principles:

Liquidity

Liquidity means that you can readily convert your investments into cash at any time. What good are your investments if you can’t access them easily? For this reason, we normally shy away from non-liquid assets such as annuities and insurance.

Our premise is simple: 100% liquidity, 100% of the time.

Safety & Growth

Most clients are as concerned with the safety of their investments as they are with long-term growth. We believe a well-designed global asset allocation program, which allocates money to the world’s finest money managers – each specializing in their particular region or sector of the world’s economy – helps to maximize growth potential and minimizes risk.

We also believe clients can minimize risk by investing in multiple portfolios of varying degrees of risk and growth.

Tax Minimization

While taxes cannot be totally avoided, they can be minimized. Tax-sheltering strategies using long-term capital gains, IRAs, Roth IRAs, SEPs, and 401(k) plans can help minimize the impact of taxes on your portfolio.

Ease

Most of our clients are business owners and working professionals who simply do not have the time or skills to effectively manage their own investment portfolios. They already have a job and are not looking for another one. Our decades of experience allow us to manage the complex world of personal investing for them so they can focus more on what they love.

Our investment philosophy is built on six cornerstones:

Embracing Volatility

Understanding market volatility is the core of our investment philosophy. Market volatility is a consistent, nonstop reality that occurs in all markets and across all sectors, both domestic and global.

When it comes to successful investing strategies, market volatility represents a clear line in the sand. While others shy away, Merrill Financial Associates believes there is opportunity in volatility.

Global Asset Allocation

We believe global asset allocation helps minimize risk and maximize returns. Our proprietary asset allocation program allocates money to whom we believe to be the world’s finest money managers, each specializing in a particular sector or region of the world’s economy. Every client account is assigned its own asset allocation portfolio, which is then updated daily and rebalanced periodically.

Systematic Investing

Systematic investing involves electronically adding money to an account regularly, which could include a daily, weekly, or monthly cadence.

Multiple Portfolios

We encourage each client to have multiple portfolios, each with its own blend of strategy, risk, and return. By investing in multiple portfolios, clients can have more confidence in pursuing their lifetime goals.

Merrill Financial Associates clients typically have three portfolios:

Conservative portfolio (nest egg money)
Moderate portfolio (growth and income)
Growth portfolio (primarily growth)

Selecting the Best Managers

We are an open-architecture firm with a universe of investment options. During our portfolio construction, we focus our analysis on identifying investment managers that offer strategies to help both maximize returns and minimize risks. The resulting manager selections are continuously under scrutiny by our research team to help ensure that we are offering our clients optimal solutions within each portfolio strategy.

Periodic Rebalancing

Periodic rebalancing involves selling portions of appreciated assets and buying portions of depreciated/less appreciated assets. This process helps growth investors to buy low and income investors to sell high. Each client is preassigned specific dates when their portfolios are analyzed and rebalanced. For those clients who are systematically adding to or taking from their portfolios, rebalancing occurs at the time of the purchase or sale.

Systematic investment plans do not assure a profit or protect against loss in declining markets. Such plans involve continuous investment, regardless of market conditions. Markets will fluctuate, and clients must consider their ability to continue investing during periods of low price levels. 

Diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against loss in declining markets, and diversification cannot guarantee that any objective or goal will be achieved.

Guided by principles, not product.

Merrill Financial Associates will guide your financial journey with clarity, confidence, and transparency.

Contact Us