Why Utilize Only One Strategy in a Changing Market…When You Can Have Strategic Solutions for any Market?

It seems like every investment manager believes he or she has a system that beats the market. They all have a great story, too, one that makes their system seem invincible.  Or they specialize in an asset class that just can’t fail, be it value, the allure of the Far East, hard assets or small caps.

But the difficult lesson that investors must learn and relearn is that there is no holy grail investment strategy, no perfect asset class - no silver bullet for every market environment.  Almost everything works sometimes but also fails sometimes.

This lesson has been a costly one for investors throughout history.  The solution – whether in buying individual company stocks and bonds or mutual funds – was discovered years ago.  It was simple, as most profound ideas are. 

A substantial answer to investment uncertainty was diversification.  If you don’t put all your eggs in one basket, they have a better chance to survive.

But if market uncertainty causes the prudent investor to diversify among mutual funds and among asset classes, why isn’t it doubly prudent to diversify among the investment strategies employed?

In the past such diversification was difficult to achieve.  Accounts would have to be established with multiple advisors, paperwork created for the different investment platforms utilized and a great deal of study would have to be made to determine which strategies to use and when to abandon one and substitute another.  And, of course, such custom diversification was only available for the very wealthy.

In 1998, Flexible Plan Investments, Ltd. changed all that.  It created a program on a no-load trust company platform with access to multiple actively managed strategies covering all of the major asset classes and both tactical and strategic strategies.  For an investment as small as $20,000, investors could hold a portfolio of strategies instead of putting all their investment "eggs" in one strategy "basket." 

At that time we also created software that enabled financial professionals to input the answers to a short suitability questionnaire.  Minutes later it would generate a portfolio of strategies that matched the suitability profile entered.  If they wished they could even custom design their own portfolios for their clients, drawing on scores of strategies and profiles.

Or, better still, for accounts of $100,000 or more FPI created its Strategic Allocation service - a custom portfolio of strategies, with disciplined performance monitoring, quarterly rebalancing and the removal of old and addition of new strategies as necessary.  Everything is done for you …automatically.  And the result is true strategic diversification to meet the changing market environment.

Today, not only has the trust company platform flourished for tax-deferred investments like 401(k) rollovers and retirement plans, but we can also offer your taxable accounts tax-deferred strategically diversified portfolios through our low cost Jefferson National variable annuity alternative.

PAST PERFORMANCE DOES NOT GUARANTEE FUTURE RESULTS. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss as well as profit. A list of all recommendations made within the immediately preceding twelve months is available upon written request. Information used and cited is from sources believed to be reliable but Flexible Plan cannot guarantee its accuracy.