I began to follow the market and invested in 1963 after receiving a small inheritence. In 1966, I went to work as a broker for a small NYSE firm. In 1978 I realized that more capital was needed by Wall Street firms and spent the next 20 years at Merrill Lynch and was very successful but was burned out at age 55 and was fully vested so I retired believing that the business model that the large investment firms were pursuing no longer made sense. After 3 years in retirement I was recruited by a trust company to be the chief investment officer responsible for $220 million in individual portfolios. I lasted there for four years realizing that the same thing that made me quit Merrill was once again working against me at the ...More trust company, lack of imaginative and appreciative management. When I resigned the assets under manadement were $410 million. My second retirement lasted 6 weeks and I put together my own investment management firm with my wife who is also an investment professional with over 20 years experience. She also has an MBA and had also worked on the sell side and the buy side of the street. We do not accept fixed income accounts and most of our accounts invest for total return. Our asset allocation allows us to invest in bonds when appropriate as a total return vehicle, but we have not seen an opportunity to use bonds with that objective for several years. On the equity side we buy both growth and value in a blended mix. We also dip into small, midcap and international. Our style is a mix of fundamental and technical analysis which I call "rational analysis".
I am not in the market for new accounts, do not advertise my services nor will I supply my name. I have 66 active accounts and require a minimum $500,000 per relationship with70bps fee. I let my clients give us referrals and then I decide if a referral is a match. 80% of clients have been with us over 15 years. I am too old to be taking on new troublesome relationships and I just don't want to hire any new portfolio managers. I guess I am on this website because there is good information to be found here and I can impart some of my own wisdom to other investors. My motto is "Greed Cometh before the Fall" and the old expression is that "there are old traders and bold traders but there are no old, bold traders" is always operative. I will on occasion post a message of an opportunity or something that one needs to watch for. Just keep in mind that I might be "talking my book".
dowjobber