Financial Planning

AGF Advisors provides financial planning services to individuals. We help you envision the future you would like, determine the level of risk that’s right for you and develop an easy-to-implement plan that works for you. Whether you wish us to handle just the investment portion of your plan or provide a comprehensive solution including estate planning and insurance, AGF has a team of professionals with decades of experience in investments, estate planning and insurance dedicated to helping you to fulfill your dreams and goals. We take pride in our local, hands-on service model, good reputation and excellent client retention record.

In our experience, people are surprised to find out that they are closer to the future they desire than they realize. We help you simplify what seems like a daunting task into easy-to-achieve steps. We start by understanding your current financial circumstances and your short- and long-term goals and dreams. Once we gather the information, we analyze it and develop a written action plan which we help you implement. For example, and depending upon your circumstances, we help you:

• Manage debt and set a budgeting and savings plan
• Implement a sound investment strategy to match your risk tolerance, time horizon and goals
• Plan the perfect retirement so you can enjoy the best years of your life
• Be sure of your insurance by ensuring your health and financial security and that of your family
• Secure your estate plan
• Determine the best alternatives to provide for your family’s education needs
• Enjoy the rewards of charitable giving

The benefits of fee based advice

AGF Advisors is organized as an independent Registered Investment Advisor and is a fiduciary legally required to follow the Fiduciary Standard whose primary duties are loyalty and acting in the best interest of the client. Thus AGF does not charge commissions or earn transaction fees; rather we partner with  you to provide unbiased advice to help you reach your goals while limiting conflicts of interest. Read more about fees and services here.

Our Investment Strategy

Managing Risk

As advisors, our main function is to manage what we can control in order to meet your goals and objectives. One of the main things we do is manage risk. It is impossible to meet your goals without any risk.

In fact if all your money is in cash, there is the risk that you will lose purchasing power because of inflation (the increase in cost of goods and services). We manage risk in many ways. For example, we buy quality investments from quality companies with good reputations and financial strength. We use an independent rating source like Morningstar to select the highest rated investments as compared to their peers and use additional analytical tools to help us analyze and manage risk.

When investing in mutual funds we look at the long-term performance, the experience of the manager, and how well he or she has managed the portfolio and the risk versus return for that fund, among other things. While investing in bonds we manage the credit worthiness (risk) of the bonds and the holding time or “duration” of those bonds or bond funds, among other things.

Setting Investment Goals

In our experience, many people have not determined their target savings goal, the savings amount needed to get there and most importantly, the needed investment return percentage. Therefore, many take too much or too little risk and as a result do not prepare properly for their future.

We take a different approach by first determining your needed savings goal, your risk tolerance, and the required investment return. We then use that information to select quality investments ranging from mutual funds, stocks, bonds, ETF’s, REIT’s, to commodities and cash. In some cases we may recommend using additional portfolio managers in order to accomplish your goals.

A Well Diversified Portfolio can Provide Steadier Returns

Another very important way we manage risk is by diversifying your portfolio and using asset allocation in response to not only your goals, but also to the changing economic climate. That is, we buy many different types of investments, like funds that invest in large, mid size or small company stocks. In fact, one study found that diversification and asset allocation could account for over 90% of a portfolio’s performance. Buying and selling securities when you think it is the best time (market timing) accounts for less than 10% of a portfolio’s performance. Moreover, Modern Portfolio Theory, one of the most important and influential economic theories dealing with finance and investment, demonstrates that portfolio diversification can reduce investment risk. Finally, it is estimated that you need to be invested in approximately 12,000 stocks and bonds to be completely diversified.

Managing Investment Costs

We use several ways to manage costs including choosing how much we are willing to pay for investments. For example, in the case where we invest in mutual funds, we tend to favor low cost funds because controlling fund fees is critical to the growth of your portfolio. We can also choose when we buy the investments.

Further, we use the power of dollar cost averaging to manage the volatility of your portfolio and manage costs. By investing periodically or on a schedule, we buy more shares as the price declines and less when these shares rise in price. This technique has the potential to reduce the average cost of shares bought. An everyday example is buying groceries or clothing on sale. You can buy more of each when the merchandise is on sale and less when it is at its regular price.

Monitoring and Rebalancing your Portfolio

The final step in managing the portfolio is to monitor it and rebalance it periodically while taking into account any changes in your personal circumstances and goals. Building a bright future takes money, time and patience. By having us manage your portfolio, you take that worry off your shoulders and put it on our experienced shoulders, giving you the gifts of time and peace of mind so you can focus on other critical area of your life.

Financial Planning Fees and Services

Financial planning involves every aspect of your life, and as such requires a customized plan created specifically for you. Therefore our fees are based on the services you will require and the complexity of the work we will do to help you achieve your goals and dreams. This process includes:

• Envisioning the future you desire and identifying short-term and long term goals
• Collecting and organizing information using interviews, questionnaires and worksheets
• Reviewing and analyzing the information and identifying opportunities and challenges
• Creating a financial strategy designed to meet your goals and objectives
• Creating a written plan with recommendations and action steps
• Assisting with the implementation of action steps as needed

Investment Management Fees and Services

Once we identify your goals, risk tolerance and time horizon, we develop an investment strategy to help you get there. This includes:

• Creating an investment portfolio using asset allocation
• Assisting in the transfer of your accounts to a consolidated portfolio
• Executing your investment strategy by purchasing securities as needed
• Monitoring and rebalancing your portfolio
• Conversations of investment issues as needed or as requested by you

Annual fees for Investment Management are based upon the assets-under-management as you can see below:

For clients with $500,000 or over in assets under management, after the initial financial plan is created, ongoing financial planning will be included in the investment management fee. AGF Advisors’ goal is to develop a long-term relationship with you to help you through all the stages of your financial life.

For more detailed information on our Financial Planning, Investment Management services and fees please refer to the
AGF Informational Brochure Form ADV 2A