Our Wealth Management Process

Our Wealth Management process takes a comprehensive approach in helping you decipher what your ambitions and goals are, both  financial and personal.  We then focus on setting a plan in motion to achieve what most matters to you. Our primary goal is to work with you to realize and instill the confidence needed to make sound financial decisions, all while helping you gain the freedom to live life the way you want.  

Working with the team of professionals at Mark Siemens Consulting Group,  we will design a tailored road map together that is developed to assist you in addressing all aspects of your financial affairs, which can be evolved over time as needed.  Throughout each new phase of your life, you will be guided by Mark and his team to help you reach your personal aspirations.

Investment Philosophy

Our investment philosophy is centered and anchored around risk management, protection and best practices.  This has not changed in over 10 years. We firmly believe that this disciplined approach and process is a key factor in gaining the trust which our clients have placed in our team.

We focus on investment strategies within strong ethical, moral and social guidelines in line with the principals of the client.  We collaborate with the best people (consultants, managers, accountants, etc.) who follow best practices (proven, consistent, outperformance, etc.) and focus on due diligence (qualitative, quantitative, analysis). We focus on outperformance that is the result of downside protection (lower than average downside capture).

Together with guidance from our Investment Strategy Committee, and our quarterly review of asset allocations, we are confident that we provide a Portfolio Management and review process that is best of class. One with proven long-term outperformance in the most difficult economic environments, one which we can confidently and proudly present as an option worthy of your hard earned resources, one that focuses on hard work, best practices, proven results and accountability.

It is this best of Class strategy and process that has provided our clients with consistent tax efficient income and long-term returns that we believe are the keys to our long-term success.

Staying the Course

 

  Daily market fluctuations highlight why a combination of discipline and perspective is key to reaching your investment goals. One way to achieve this fine balance is by having a plan and sticking to it through all types of market conditions. This may sound easy, but investors have been put to the test in recent years. 

  Veering off course from a carefully thought-out plan can turn a temporary loss of confidence into a realized loss on an investment portfolio.  Investors who maintain perspective and stay mindful of their investment time horizon have a better chance of reaching their investment goals than those who react to short-term market fluctuations.

  Staying invested and trying not to “enter and exit” the markets when volatility increases can help reduce fluctuations over the long term. The longer an investment is held in a portfolio, the less chance it has of incurring a negative rate of return. This is because fluctuations in value tend to smooth out over time as the impact of market volatility diminishes.

  History shows that by maintaining discipline and perspective during market downturns, a patient investor will often be the one rewarded when markets return to an upward path.  

  As market volatility increases, investors have a natural tendency to want to move into safer investments, hoping  to avoid further losses. However, this move can result in needlessly locking in losses on investments that, given time, are  likely to recover. A key to overcoming this emotional reaction is  to refrain from trying to time the market. Selling at the wrong time and missing just a few days of a market recovery could  have a significant long-term impact on your portfolio.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

Asset Class Diversification

  No one can reliably predict how a particular asset class will perform in any given year.  Financial markets do not move in concert with one another.  Individual asset classes  (cash, fixed income and equities) will perform differently in any given year, and at any time one asset class may be leading the market while others lag.

  The table below shows relative performance of some of the more popular asset classes in Canada over the past 10 years. As you can see, there were years when equities led market returns and years when fixed income led the market. There were also periods when a market leader from one year underperformed all of the other asset classes the following year.  You will also see times when the lowest performer from one year went on to lead the market the next year. Cash has never led the market in any one-year period over the past decade, however, it is also the only asset class to have never experienced a negative return.

  Markets will always go up and down in the short term. Investing in a diversified mix of equities, fixed income and cash can help steer you through every market condition and help protect you from short-term market declines.  Assets that increase in value can compensate for others that may be standing still or decreasing, thereby helping to reduce risk and smooth out the returns in your portfolio over the long term.

  We can review your individual investment goals together,  to help you establish the right asset mix based on your needs.

Research

RBC employs hundreds of analysts globally as well as economists and strategists.  Furthermore RBC retains independent, third party research both in Canada and globally.  This ensures the highest level of research of any company in Canada.

RBC Wealth Management Dominion Securities also retains the services from Envestnet who is the largest independent Third Party provider of advanced research, integrated analytics and expert advisory support in North America.

Global Manager Research Team

Team consists of 18 people, including 15 Chartered Financial Analysts (CFAs).  (11 in Minneapolis, 3 in Toronto, and 4 in London)

They conducted about 1,100 meetings during 2015 (578 conference calls, 362 in-house visits, 165 site visits), and as of July 2016 they had also held about 500 meetings. (252 conference calls, 152 in-house visits, 93 on site visits).