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You can think of us as the truest of fiduciaries. Our founder, Hector Hinojosa, CFP®, is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ which means he is required by financial industry designation to work in the clients’ best interests at all times, placing each client’s interests ahead of his own. This designation requires at least 6,000 hours of professional experience in financial planning, holding a bachelor’s degree or higher from an accredited college or university, extensive coursework, passing the CFP® exam, and meeting ongoing continuing education requirements. Learn more.

Additionally, both Hector and Josh Hinojosa hold their Series 65 securities registrations, which means they are investment advisor representatives that do not (and cannot) earn commissions on securities or stock market trades, and indeed, are mandated to disclose all fees and payments. As you are considering financial advisors and whether or not they are fiduciaries (even if they say they are), be sure to ask what licenses and registrations they hold. Be hesitant to engage someone who holds “dual registrations,” such as a Series 7 and Series 65, as they may only have to be working with you as a fiduciary part of the time, but the other part of the time they can make recommendations that are “suitable” for your situation but may not be in your best interest. Be mindful that Series 7 and similar registrations allow a person to make commissions on stock market and security trades.

While bankers, insurance agents and stockbrokers have products to sell, as true financial planners, we have comprehensive financial plans to design and execute. In addition to crafting and managing portfolios matched to your risk profile, we also consider many other aspects of your life, such as what will happen in the event that something unexpected happens in the future. Our goal is to shift risks away from your family in advance of anything actually happening, and that is key to protecting your overall financial health. We have the hard conversations with you about potential adverse life situations, the need for estate planning, up-to-date beneficiaries, and the potential of becoming disabled and/or needing long-term care.

In addition to all this, we consider the overall short- and long-term tax ramifications to your finances when we develop plans. This is a complexity that many other financial professionals do not address. We are true financial planners, not salespeople or stockbrokers.

There are two key parts to our investment philosophy. The first involves assessing the level of risk you are truly comfortable with, not just what you think you are comfortable with. The second part involves utilizing our industry’s flagship research tool to develop your customized portfolio based on your situation, objectives, desires, and tolerance to risk, matched with investments chosen based on balance sheets, cash reserves, leadership, and other indications of financial strength. We follow principles espoused by Warren Buffet if that gives you any indication of our approach.

We do not make commissions on stock market or securities trades. For most clients, we charge a flat fee of 1% of assets under management; this amounts to about $100 per year for every $10,000 invested. For people with more than $1 million invested, we offer a participation fee, with a percentage charged only on account gains. We are insurance licensed, and insurance companies may compensate us. We are completely transparent and disclose all fees, including insurance payments, to our clients before and throughout our work together. Learn more about our pricing here.

We use Schwab as our third-party custodian. Having a custodian in place protects you, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, we counsel everyone to never allow a firm to hold your money—this is how frauds are perpetrated, for example, the Bernie Madoff scandal. As a third-party custodian, Schwab will only wire funds to your bank account, or cut a paper check and mail it to your home. We are only able to view and help decide where money gets invested, always with your knowledge.

Each month, Schwab will mail you a statement with breakouts of all your holdings and their performance. Every quarter, we hold a video meeting with you to go over your financial plan and your accounts to make sure we are both happy with everything, adjusting, changing, rebalancing or re-allocating based on anything we mutually decide upon in our quarterly conversation. We feel the standard annual review is not enough, especially in today’s economy.

You can think of us as the truest of fiduciaries. Our founder, Hector Hinojosa, CFP®, is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ which means he is required by financial industry designation to work in the clients’ best interests at all times, placing each client’s interests ahead of his own. This designation requires at least 6,000 hours of professional experience in financial planning, holding a bachelor’s degree or higher from an accredited college or university, extensive coursework, passing the CFP® exam, and meeting ongoing continuing education requirements. Learn more.

Additionally, both Hector and Josh Hinojosa hold their Series 65 securities registrations, which means they are investment advisor representatives that do not (and cannot) earn commissions on securities or stock market trades, and indeed, are mandated to disclose all fees and payments. Both Hector and Josh are also insurance licensed.

As we always say, “It’s not how much you earn, it’s how much you keep.” As true fiduciary financial planners, we are always focused on the tax implications of your financial plan and keeping more money in your pocket by considering the ramifications of tax-deferred and tax-free accounts, as well as accounts subject to short-term or long-term capital gains. We work closely with your CPA to help manage this as well as uncovering potential tax-loss harvesting opportunities within your portfolio annually when it’s getting close to tax time.

Depending on your tolerance for risk and your situation, we may use the S&P 500, Nasdaq, bond indices or other benchmarks. For most people, it’s the S&P 500.