Beginning a financial planning relationship with Ancona Financial Advisors involves a very significant series of events. We want to meet in our office, where we can get to know each other. In most cases, we consider a couple to be our clients, so we should talk with both spouses. We can, however, work effectively with single people or one person from a couple. There are often good reasons for such relationships.

In our initial meeting we want to learn about the issues that motivate our clients to seek financial planning services. We will talk about your goals and objectives for yourself and your family. Hearing you discuss your aspirations is very important. Reviewing your financial information with you will also add insights Click here for a summary that will help you prepare for an initial meeting.

I'll likely ask some questions around your "money items" including your insurances, taxes, debts, estate planning, mortgage, retirement plans, and investments. I'll give you our comments and recommendations about these as we talk. All this will help us get a feeling for where I can help you.

I'll then outline for you our framework for making sound investment decisions. . I'll explain in plain English how investment markets really work. You'll understand what factors drive expected returns, and either limit or create risk. You'll know how institutional funds can greatly reduce the costs and expenses embedded in retail mutual funds that you're likely to find in your current portfolio

I'll introduce you to the Edelman Managed Asset Program. Daily rebalancing reviews via EMAP enables us to capture short term pricing anomalies and to protect our investments from the recent volatility. There are no transaction fees or commissions, just an annual fee, and it declines as your account grows .

We generally suggest new clients engage us to do a financial plan. Edelman describes it as 3 pages long and one of these is a picture. Page 1 describes your current situation. Page 2 defines were you'll need to be to achieve your goals and objectives. Page 3 describes what needs to be done to get there from here. Clearly this will be an important input into your portfolio design and savings programs. About 70 % of our clients have done this plan

We'll end the first meeting by arranging for delivery of whatever information is needed.
The plan, including a suggested portfolio design, will be presented in a second meeting usually about two weeks after all data is collected.

If you accept the portfolio design, we will discuss using EMAP to implement and manage your portfolio.