Cheetham Jackson - Smart Investment

14 SMART MONEY So often we meet investors who have made investment decisions without a clear understanding of the investments they have made, or without a clearly defined financial plan which they review regularly with their financial planner. Without understanding and clarity there is confusion and often fear, especially when stock markets experience volatility and turbulence. We are passionate about helping our clients achieve their goals.We believe it is essential that clients gain a clear understanding of financial matters.This comes from education, explanation, information and a two-way process so that we as financial planners understand our client’s needs and our clients understand how their personal financial plan can help them achieve their goals. That is why we spend so much time meeting our clients, listen to their fears and concerns, and work closely with them to explain, inform and educate them so they achieve a full understanding of their financial plan.With this understanding and knowledge clients take ownership of their financial plans, and thereby significantly increase the success of their personal financial plan. Imagine you are a gardener, and you decide to neglect your garden. Each year, you fail to tend the garden, and simply let it grow wild. Picture the garden after a few years: what would it look like? The answer is it would no longer be a garden, but an overgrown, unkempt wilderness. So it is with your financial plan. If you ignore it, neglect it and leave it untended, don’t be surprised if it starts to go wrong and stops producing the returns you had planned for. It is at least as important to maintain and review your financial plan regularly as it is to design and implement your plan at its inception.Yet so often, investors start their plan with the best intentions, but fail to maintain and regularly review their plans. We are passionate about serving our clients, and a centre- piece of our core values is the delivery of regular planned review meetings.We ask clients to agree to a review meeting every six months so that we can ensure the plan remains ‘on course’, and that together we can take account of any changes. We also pursue a rigorous policy of reviewing the perfor- mance of your portfolio, and commit to ‘re-balancing’ your portfolio at regular intervals, in consultation with you. Re-balancing is necessary because, over time, some elements of your portfolio will grow faster than others. Consequently the portfolio will start to get un-balanced, and will often have too much money invested in stock markets. By taking some of the profits, and re-balancing the portfolio, it is possible to maintain the integrity of the original plan and ensure it doesn’t become over-exposed to one asset class. Review your financial plan regularly Re-balancing Work in Partnership We believe it is essential that clients gain a clear understanding of financial matters.