Our Philosophy
O'Sullivan Creel Wealth Advisors was founded with the understanding that our clients have unique and specific goals which require customized and integrated strategies to achieve. Because major financial decisions may involve investments, cash flow, income taxes, estate taxes, and risk management, specially-skilled professionals are often necessary to help accomplish your goals. Our team understands that time is one of your most precious assets, and strives to simplify and manage our clients' financial affairs so that they can focus on the more meaningful facets of their lives.
To appreciate the strategies we recommend, it helps to understand our Investment Philosophy. We believe that a customized investment strategy is the culmination of the planning process and should integrate with all of the functional areas of wealth management in light of the client's unique goals and values. An effective investment portfolio directly reflects the investor's primary financial objectives. A written Investment Policy Statement is developed to document investment objectives, liquidity requirements, investment time horizon, risk tolerance, tax considerations, and unique preferences or legal constraints. A flexible, individualized approach allows us to construct portfolios specific to each client's objectives, rather than assuming that one strategy is right for everyone. However, our investment philosophy is based on academic research and empirical results, and proven investment strategies are implemented, using a disciplined methodology. We focus on structuring long-term asset allocation plans, capturing the returns of the capital markets, and reducing investment risk through diversification.
To reduce volatility in a portfolio, it is important to diversify across assets that perform well in varying economic environments. Diversification does not mean owning several different stocks - it means owning assets with attractive return characteristics that derive those returns in fundamentally different ways. Diversification of our portfolios is across several dimensions. We diversify investment portfolios by equity market capitalization (large, mid, small), investment style (growth, value), market efficiency (developed, emerging), geography (domestic, international), and asset class (public equity, private equity, real estate, commodities, fixed income).
Employing open architecture, we construct portfolios in order to design a unique solution for each client.
We are sensitive to taxes and portfolio expenses. Expenses reduce investment returns for every client. Since we have no proprietary interest in any strategy or investment employed in clients' accounts, our commitment to open architecture permits us to always pursue optimization of portfolios at lowest available cost. Taxes are a significant consideration for our clients, and we exercise great care in the appropriate placement of investments within taxable and tax-deferred accounts, as well as monitoring and reviewing portfolios for tax-saving opportunities.
Over time, fluctuations in the capital markets may skew a portfolio away from the target asset allocation, and O'Sullivan Creel Wealth Advisors will rebalance the portfolio in a tax-efficient manner, by trimming outperforming asset classes and reallocating monies to underperforming asset classes. This rebalancing helps reduce the risk of the portfolio and can add incremental performance over time.
O'Sullivan Creel Wealth Advisors has a strong belief in performance reporting. In addition to regular monthly custodial statements, we provide our clients with quarterly reports detailing the progress of clients' investment accounts, on a quarterly, year-to-date, and program-to-date basis, in relation to appropriate benchmarks.