Sound Investing Services
It is a concept geared to the smaller investor, or the investor who cannot or wishes not to meet the minimum investment requirements of Alan B. Lancz & Associates, Inc. It was created by Alan B. Lancz himself to serve these clients.
Sound Investing involves two investment concepts:
– Legacy Education for Multiple Generations
– Investment Management and Guidance
Alan B. Lancz believes that sound education is an integral part of the investment process. For a modest percentage-of-assets fee, investors can now benefit from the same advice ABL’s wealthiest clients have enjoyed for the past decades. This advice, guidance, and education comes to Sound Investing clients in variety of formats based on your performances.
Sound Investing Basics, a quarterly publication, specifically written to help our investors understand the cost, risk, tax implications, and financial success involved with ETF and mutual fund investing.
Investment management and guidance is provided to the Sound Investing client through a hand-picked custom-tailored portfolio of mutual funds and exchange traded funds selected to meet the investor’s personal objectives. Low costs combined with strategic asset allocation and rebalancing makes Sound Investing an ideal platform for 401(K) and other retirement avenues.
There are many other facets to Sound Investing. A no cost, – or obligation meeting is offered to determine how Sound Investing can make a difference for you. Call our office today at 419-536-5200 to get started.
The concept of Sound Investing goes back to the days when Alan B. Lancz was just ten years old. His father started bringing home publications like Value Line and S&P, and made it clear that he was not at all happy with his personal stock broker. That started young Mr. Lancz with his fascination with investing. Through high school and college, Alan began to realize that the only way to objectively look at and handle anyone’s investment portfolio was through an independent fee-only relationship. There was simply no other way to avoid the inherent pitfalls and potential conflicts which arise with commissions and soft-money passages.
Sound Investing grew out of these sound basic investment concepts and is designed to help the smaller-sized investor in the same manner in which the very largest investors are served by Alan B. Lancz & Associates, Inc. ABL always offers a personal no-cost meeting to help determine if Sound Investing meets your personal financial investment needs.
Cost – Cost is another area not covered by many brokers/advisors, but it is an important aspect of any investment or financial plan. Most investors are not fully aware of their initial costs, annual expenses, or total cost of each investment before investing. Our costs are transparent, as that is part of our education process – no hidden fees and no hidden agendas.
Tax Exposure – Once again, most investors are not aware of what the inherent tax liability or future potential tax costs are before they invest. Similar to the cost and risk of a mutual fund, your tax exposure and the fund’s tax efficiency are integral components of any long term investment plan.
Sound Investing is a very basic and low cost approach to long-term investment success.
The most frequently asked questions, and answers to these questions, are featured below.-
ABL Asset Allocation
ABL asset allocation utilizes a proactive, more tactical approach to capitalize on overvalued & undervalued segments of the global markets. Typically a range of percentage allocation is coordinated based on goals, objectives, and risk tolerance. The portfolio is then adjusted based on taking advantage of overvalued areas by profit taking and redeploying assets into lower risk, undervalued areas for the long term.
The Investment Philosophy of Alan B. Lancz & Associates, Inc. is simply one of matching individual goals with return objectives and we have several means of implementing this philosophy and strategy. Each is designed to accomplish specific objectives while keeping with our basic investment philosophy. Briefly, our investment philosophy may be summed up in the following positions and guidelines, all which impact our investment decisions here at ABL:
Flexible Approach – We never seek to identify with a single, rigid process or formula for investing or managing capital. The investment marketplace is constantly changing and, therefore, requires our flexibility.
Discipline to Take Profits – Timing is again key to our investment strategies. No one can predict equity markets, economic conditions or interest rate futures. Instead, we attempt to evaluate all present elements of risk, then time the implementation of the investment, and later, take profits. This strategy has been critical in our long term success as profit taking not only realizes gains but also reduces risk as valuations rise.
Thorough Independent Research – Research is key to our investment selection and management process. We acquire and evaluate information on an intense and continuous basis. We obtain research through LanczGlobal LLC – www.LanczGlobal.com.
Continuous Focus – Our aim is always for long-term results. This is achieved by consistently meeting and regularly evaluating predetermined objectives, over a continuous period of years.
Defensive positioning – We do not mind being out of the market at appropriate times. Nor do we mind fixed income, cash positions or other investments at similar times. We will alter our position to fully participate when the situation calls for it – and, upon request, we will selectively use short strategies should certain investments become severely overvalued.
Investment Discipline
Full Disclosure Combined With Low Costs
ABL was one of the first investment managers in the country to fully disclose personal retirement and corporate holdings to its investors. In the further pursuit of our “client first” philosophy, we have kept our trading costs and fee structures among the most competitive in the industry. We use a variety of top rated custodians to custody your trust, retirement, or personal assets.
Selective Timing of Each Sale
When, in our judgment, an investment has risen to or above its potential, we likewise eliminate it from our portfolio – even though it may go higher. Our reasoning is straightforward: as a stock rises in value, we continually re-assess its risk-to-reward ratio, and eliminate the position when it becomes no longer favorable. In the case of special situations or corporate event investments, we eliminate the investment from our holdings when the event has taken place or the situation no longer exists.
Avoid The “Favored” Issues
We tend to stay away from the “favored” issues or industries. This also is the contrarian view. At ABL, we are seeking long-term capital appreciation rather than the fickle variance of current return. Following the herd, by investing in highly favored issues, results in mediocre performance and increased risk. Most investors have already purchased and, expecting good news, have driven the stock to its upper limits. Favored issues often become a standard case of too little, too late.
At ABL, we steadfastly adhere to three disciplines that comprise this concept:
- The patience to seek out long-term asset growth
- The resolve to avoid the “hot” technical chart
- The courage to take a loss
With these disciplines in place, we can more closely – and safely – meet the investment objectives of our clientele. The end result is a customized approach to innovative investment solutions, full disclosure, comprehensive reporting and the reassuring peace of mind that comes from long-term investment results.
Investment Selection
Comprehensive, independent and objective research is the key to our investment selection process. Our research can be broken down into two main categories:
ABL maintains long-term relationships with some of the best informed and brightest minds in the financial arena. It started in the 1980’s with our good fortune in establishing a rewarding friendship with legendary investor, Sir John Templeton. Some of these exclusive information channels have become keys to our successful proprietary research and management record.
The investment selection process described here blends the psychological aspects of investing with an underlying fundamental basis of analysis. While virtually every sophisticated investor has access to similar statistics, trends and forecasts, we stress an additional yardstick of performance: the “quality” of corporate management. We believe that this personal evaluation of a company’s decision makers distinguishes solid investment opportunities from the merely ordinary.
We also look for alternative or special situation investment opportunities. This may be an acquisition, change in earnings, change in corporate structure, divestiture of an unprofitable division, consolidation of divisions, tender offer for its own stock – or any of hundreds of other happenings. We are on the lookout for companies with unusual earnings and asset growth, significantly higher than Wall Street generally anticipates, whose market prices do not yet reflect these changes.
Unconventional Concepts
Over the past three decades, Alan B. Lancz & Associates has been innovative in creating and implementing growth and investment concepts for our clients. These have been the results of incorporating their individual needs with our customized solutions.
Custom Designed Portfolio Management
Our accounts range from guaranteed to long term growth – with nearly every combination of these, and more, in between. As a result, we have established the practice of customizing each account to the client’s individual needs and objectives. There is no pooling of assets. No carbon-copy asset allocation programs or model portfolios geared for the masses.
Fully Disclosed Fee Based Compensation – Transparency
From our start, we have served our clients exclusively on a fee-based compensation basis. There are no soft-dollar compensation programs with other advisors, brokers or equity distributors. There are no hidden fees, charges or other compensation programs whatsoever. This assures maximum investment objectivity, and helps avoid potential conflicts of interest and pitfalls associated with so many of these other arrangements.
We are a very discriminating money management firm. Many firms that advertise are geared to continually add new clients to make up for the ones lost. We would rather build long-term relationships with our clients, and thus, do not need to continuously add new ones indiscriminately. Besides, word of mouth referrals from satisfied clients has been more than enough to fuel our growth over the past more than two decades.
We began analyzing mutual funds for the sons/daughters of some of our larger managed clientele. Because of this, most of the work and relationships within the industry were already established and now it is a matter of instituting disciplined analysis to make sure we offer the best, low cost funds available. This, along with the fact of being independent, helps us pass the savings to you.
We know many of the money managers that handle mutual funds and this helps us do more than your typical numerical/risk analysis. Personal knowledge and relationships built over the past three decades has helped us tremendously in our analysis, allocation strategy and overall investment selection process.
If you are unhappy for whatever reason, you will receive a pro-rata refund of our fees. Other firms actually charge an added termination fee in an attempt to influence you to stay. In contrast, we feel that we should always be proving our worth to you and will not assess additional charges.
When it comes to evaluating the success of an investment plan, the average investor focuses on the end result or overall performance. What so often gets lost in the investment process is the risk taken to obtain the performance, as well as the total cost involved. The control of risk is paramount to long term investment success. Despite any investment plan performance, costs and risk levels will always be inextricably linked. At Alan B. Lancz & Associates, Inc. we feel the success of any investment plan depends on prudent strategies for managing risk.