At the end of the day, clients care most about results. 

This may sound like investment performance, but is really much more.  Clients care most about whether they can continue their present lifestyle or retire on their own schedule.  These are the results that clients ultimately want.

While we definitely focus on investment returns, we are paying much more attention to whether clients are on track to meet their investment goals. 

Goals Based Process
Using the Acropolis Financial Forecaster® (AFF), we start with clients goals, usually in the form of the cash flow that they will need to live at their desired lifestyle. 

We go through the AFF at the outset of the relationship in order to establish our investment strategy, but we also review the AFF once per year (barring major changes).  At the review meeting, we make sure that clients are either on course to meet their goals, or figure out what changes need to be made to increase the odds of meeting their objectives.   

By using the AFF as part of an ongoing process, we believe that we will substantially improve the chances that clients will meet their goals.

Behavior Management
Investing can be very emotional.  Unfortunately, emotion generally hurts investor performance by causing people to take undue risks in a rising market and becoming too risk averse in a falling market.

For example, one study shows starkly how investors can hurt themselves by following their emotion.  During the 20 year period of the study, the market gained 12 percent per year.  The universe of equity mutual funds gained roughly 10.5 percent during the same period; the difference can be explained by the roughly 1.5 percent expense ratio of the mutual funds. 

Investors, however, fared much worse than the market or the universe of equity mutual funds; gaining only four percent per year during this 20 year study.  The staggering difference between investor returns and the universe of equity mutual funds is explained by the poor, emotionally-driven decisions that investors frequently make.

Our experience and perspective, coupled with a disciplined and process-driven approach, allows us to maintain a balanced, even approach throughout an entire market cycle, providing our clients with results much better than they would have likely achieved on their own. 

Acropolis Investment Management is a St. Louis based fee-only private wealth management firm, staffed with dedicated financial professionals ready to work with you to reach your investment goals.  Whether you are looking to start your retirement planning, rollover your IRA or 401K, or you're an institutional investor looking to maximize returns, we are here to help. To learn more about our financial planning services, please contact us at 1-888-882-0072.