Investment Management

At AWM&T, our investment services are centered around you. Your dedicated Relationship Manager meets with you to discuss your goals and their timelines, risk tolerance, sensitivity to taxes, and personal investment preferences.

Your Relationship Manager then works with our military investment professionals to create an investment policy statement just for you. Then, we develop your investment strategy, build your portfolio, and measure its performance over time.

After establishing your portfolio, our investment team continues to manage and monitor your investments, adjusting as necessary to optimize returns. Your dedicated Relationship Manager keeps you informed and will meet with you to review your portfolio’s performance.

Your portfolio is custom-tailored to you. Some of the core portfolio strategies we use and how they help our clients meet their objectives include:

• Equity: Primary investment objective is appreciation of principal. Income is not important. Stock exposure is 80 to 100%.
• Aggressive: Primary investment objective is appreciation of principal. Income is secondary. Stock exposure ranges from 70 to 90%.
• Growth: Primary investment objective is appreciation of principal. A moderate level of income is needed. Stock exposure ranges from 50 to 70%.
• Balanced: Investment objectives are to preserve principal purchasing power and generate moderate income. Stock exposure ranges from 40 to 60%.
• Income growth: Primary investment objective is a moderate income, and the secondary objective is preservation of principal. Stock exposure ranges from 20 to 40%.
• Income: Primary investment objective is a high rate of income, and the secondary objective is preservation of purchasing power. Stock exposure ranges from 0 to 30%.
• All fixed income: Primary investment objective is generating income. Appreciation of principal is not important. Fixed income exposure is 100%.

AWM&T’s investment philosophy is to do what is right for our Members, always. To keep this promise to our investors, our investment philosophy observes these guiding principles:

Proper Asset Allocation

We believe that the most important factor determining investment success is proper asset allocation that matches your long-term investment goals, timeframe, and ability to tolerate short-term market volatility.

According to one of the most highly regarded studies on portfolio performance, 90 to 95% of the returns generated by a large sampling of pension funds over 10 years were due to their asset allocation, not their security selection. In other words, an investor’s exposure to a particular asset class was more important than the specific securities within that class—demonstrating that investment success is based upon asset allocation and affirming our investment philosophy.

Diversification to Mitigate Risk

While we believe in the power of a long-term, focused, and properly allocated portfolio, we are keenly aware of the need to mitigate risk whenever possible. As such, diversification strategies are key to our investment process. By dividing a portfolio carefully among selected asset classes, an investor can maximize potential returns at an acceptable level of risk.

Active Management

Our investment process uses a combination of mutual funds and individual stocks and bonds when constructing your portfolio. We use actively managed mutual funds (where the managers seek to outperform an index through investment selection) whenever we feel that the management of that fund can deliver better risk-adjusted returns, net of taxes and fees, than a passive index approach could. We will use passive index funds to obtain our desired asset class exposure when we cannot find an appropriate active fund.

Rigorous Assessments and Reviews

We conduct a rigorous review and assessment process before any mutual fund, stock, or bond is purchased for a member’s portfolio. Once purchased, all investments are monitored continuously and adjusted as needed.

Precisely Calculated Rebalancing

We believe systematic rebalancing of assets is essential to maintaining the consistency of an investment account’s returns and risk profile. We do not use a periodic rebalancing method where portfolios are rebalanced at specific times of the year. Instead, we use a percentage-based methodology where portfolios are rebalanced whenever set parameters are reached. When an asset class exceeds a specified percentage of the portfolio, we pare back that class and move it into an under-represented class.

The cost of AWM&T’s military investment management services varies with your total investments:

• 1.00% per annum on the first $500,000
• 0.80% per annum on the next $500,001 to $2,500,000
• 0.60% per annum on the next $2,500,001 to $5,000,000
• 0.40% per annum on the next $5,000,001 to $7,500,000
• 0.20% per annum on the next $7,500,001 to $10,000,000
• Fees negotiated on accounts above $10,000,000

The fee for a comprehensive financial plan is $3,500. Learn more about AWM&T’s financial planning.