Our Investment Philosophy
Argent believes that successful investment management must be based upon a foundation of diversification, a disciplined focus on valuation and expected returns, a thorough understanding of our clients’ needs and circumstances, avoidance of unnecessary fees and expenses, and careful management of taxes.
Diversification
Diversification is a time-honored concept. As important as ever, it is also becoming more difficult to achieve as correlations among sectors and between equity and fixed income securities continue to increase. Diversification is the tactic we use to protect investment portfolios against negative outcomes, but it also helps improve our clients’ chances of participating in wealth-creating opportunities.
Discipline
While we adhere to the discipline of allocating investments into asset classes with the most attractive valuations, we also know that protecting wealth requires a careful avoidance of concentrations and the spreading of risk. We are willing to make opportunistic investment decisions in times of stress and are willing to reduce or exit positions in times of euphoria.
Valuation
We focus on a thorough understanding of valuation. Starting valuation is the key determinant of long-term performance of an investment, and we make investment decisions accordingly.
Client needs and circumstances
While certain portfolio management tools and strategies are broadly applicable, each client may have a unique set of circumstances, and we will develop custom portfolios and strategies to meet those needs.
Fees, expenses and taxes
We focus on avoiding unnecessary costs when managing investment portfolios. We work to identify and utilize quality active strategies when they can add value, but we may also utilize low-cost and efficient passive strategies where they make sense. For taxable accounts, we maintain a constant awareness of the tax implications of portfolio decisions.
