At Karen Lee and Associates, we adhere to the following guiding principles:

• We believe that all people deserve to be heard and that their situations are unique and important to them.
• We believe people should live beneath their means and commit to serious saving to adequately plan for the future.
• We believe in insuring against unnecessary risk.
• We believe in helping people help themselves to achieve their dreams through planning.
• We practice what we preach.

In making financial and investment decisions with clients, we use a disciplined approach:

Financial Planning

Age, investment horizon and risk tolerance must be considered when making important financial decisions. It is inappropriate to recommend an investment without first obtaining pertinent investor information. To that end, we will prepare necessary financial statements and a comprehensive financial plan to assist us in recommending investments that are most suitable for you.

Diversification

We believe that diversification is the key to investing in the market. While not specifically a protection against losses, it is one of the best ways to help smooth out the volatility of any portfolio.

Asset Allocation

The science of diversification was made famous when the authors of "Modern Portfolio Theory" won the Nobel Prize in Finance in 1990. It has proven over time to help reduce the inherent risk in investment portfolios.

Asset allocation enables an investor to reduce the overall volatility of the portfolio.  However, using an asset allocation methodology does not guarantee greater or more consistent returns nor assure against market loss.

Specialist Third Party Money Managers

We do not claim to be experts in money management, but instead, financial planners who understand the comprehensive whole of our client’s situation. We rely on carefully selected third party money managers to handle the specific investments of our clients’ portfolios. We serve as the filter and selector, providing ongoing monitoring of these specialists’ performance.

NO Market Timing

Academic research in the field of finance, (i.e., Modern Portfolio Theory and Efficient Market Hypothesis) has shown that success in investing is determined by time IN the market versus TIMING the market, and that asset class selection makes up over 90% of a portfolio’s anticipated return. NOBODY knows on any consistent basis when is the best time to get in or out of the stock or bond markets, so we maintain that a long term investment horizon is essential for optimum performance.

NO Individual Stock Selection

We do not try to pick individual stocks that may, or may not, outperform the general market. Diversification provides protection from volatility. Limiting a portfolio to a few companies may increase volatility without necessarily providing higher returns.

Diversification can be thought of as spreading your investment dollars into various asset classes to add balance to your portfolio. Although it doesn't guarantee a profit, it may be able to reduce the volatility of your portfolio.

Review and Update

Financial plans should be updated regularly. Whether this is annually or every 3 – 5 years is determined by the client’s unique situation, and changes occurring in their life. However all situations require regular review to ensure that plans remain current.

Learn about our team.