Blankinship & Foster, LLC

The most important step in the portfolio design process is determining the timing and amount of capital required to meet your specific financial objectives, such as financial independence, education funding or accumulating employee pension benefits.  The "answer" is usually expressed as a specific dollar amount earning an assumed rate of return at an assumed rate of inflation.

After determining the amounts of these pools of capital, the next important step is to determine the level of risk you are willing to tolerate in your investment portfolio. The level of risk, and the corresponding rate of return, must be realistic in today's economic environment and at the same time sufficient to achieve your goals.  This is perhaps the most complex decision that you will make.

In order to maximize the probability that you would be able to meet your goals, our bias is toward selecting the lowest level of risk necessary to meet your financial objectives.

Only after we have identified your goals, determined your required rate of return and balanced that with a realistic level of risk do we begin to select the appropriate mix of investments that will become your portfolio.  Your portfolio will be diversified across assets, sectors and strategies to balance the overall risk of the portfolio while attempting to achieve your target return.

Finally, the selection of appropriate and suitable investments can be made.  Investment selection is the final task to be accomplished in the portfolio design process.