Our Philosophy

A core belief of Signal Ridge Capital Partners is that no two clients are exactly alike. Each client has unique objectives, attitudes, tolerances, past experiences and life circumstances. As such, we believe the industry standard practice of managing a series of model portfolios and then fitting all clients into one of those models is sub-optimal. That creates a situation where clients may be invested in strategies that aren’t in their best interest, don’t reflect their goals and objectives and may not have the capacity to achieve the level of financial security that every client desires. Instead of forcing clients into a model portfolio, each plan and portfolio we construct is built from the ground up based on a client’s individual situation. Individual portfolios are constructed around specific objectives in order to give each client the best possible opportunity to achieve investment and life goals.

We believe that true risk for an investor is the possibility of falling short of one’s goals or running out of money. To best meet individual objectives, portfolios should be built to match those goals; not designed merely to outperform an arbitrary benchmark. Portfolios focused on the latter are often built by picking the “best” managers, funds or investments available. The problem with this approach is that yesterday’s winners are rarely the best investments for the future. This strategy often induces a destructive cycle of buying investments at high points and selling them after they fail to meet expectations of outperformance. Conversely, all of our investments are made with a specific function in mind and their ongoing place in portfolios is determined based on each investment’s continued ability to serve its intended purpose. We constantly revisit our investment selection process in search of investments that will effectively produce expected results. Because costs directly impact performance, we prefer low cost, diversified, index-like investments. In certain situations, we will utilize active managers who can manage around particular risks we seek to avoid.

There aren’t many free lunches in the investing world, but diversification is as close as it gets. Unfortunately, many investors don’t practice true diversification. Diversification as practiced by Signal Ridge goes far beyond buying a multitude of different funds and declaring the goal achieved. Instead, our goal is to include many inherently varied assets in a portfolio, each one selected to play a specific role during a particular economic environment. We carry out that diversification strategy within a customized portfolio that ensures that each portfolio is reflective of that client’s individual objectives and circumstances. In this way we seek to further diversify a portfolio around your career, your pension or any other unique factors that warrant consideration.

Our primary purpose as your investment advisors is to guide you to your destination with as few bumps in the road as possible. We want you to sit back and enjoy the ride. To that end, we manage portfolios on a discretionary basis. We are happy to keep you informed on portfolio strategy, but we make day-to-day investment decisions for you.

Signal Ridge Capital Partners is invested in building long-term relationships with our clients. That’s a result of our investment and financial planning process, which is oriented towards creating a partnership as clients climb a path towards financial peace of mind. Our business is centered on crafting and managing tailored investment portfolios and the financial plans that guide those portfolios.

Before embarking upon that financial partnership with a client, we fully describe our process and objectives so that our clients understand the Signal Ridge Capital Partners investment philosophy and approach. In our initial meetings with clients, we explore the compatibility of our methodology and values because we want to ensure that our slow-and-steady approach meshes with a client’s circumstances and objectives.

Any proposed investment plan results from a disciplined process that involves input from each client as well as from the client’s attorneys, accountants and other advisors when appropriate. Signal Ridge Capital Partners serves as a quasi-family office for many of its clients, as the relationships are often multi-generational, intimate in detail and broad in the scope of services offered. Too many high net worth clients suffer from a lack of coordination in their complex financial and investment lives. This often results in a burden that can result in less than optimal results across investment, risk management, tax management, estate planning and other areas. Our goal is to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks by collaborating with third party experts to help and relieve clients of this burden.

Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy of improvement through continuous incremental change. At Signal Ridge, we realize that the world of finance is fluid and requires a dynamic approach to survive and thrive over time. That’s why we are committed to:

• Improving our knowledge through ongoing educational programs
• Enhancing our process by embracing new and better technologies and techniques
• Constantly reviewing our strategies and partners

We pursue these steps to ensure that we provide our clients with the best possible advice for their given situations.