The RU Group
Investment Advice
Investments
It’s well known that a diverse investment portfolio reduces financial risk. Our investment philosophy is based on sound evidence and strong theory, and our model portfolios have been tested under diverse market conditions. We’re very proud of our results.
Our systematic approach is designed to make investing as easy as possible for you. It’s based on the lessons we’ve distilled from over ten years of experience in advising our clients, managing their wealth and helping them plan for their futures.
We believe that our investment philosophy and process create the most successful investing strategy for our clients, without taking unnecessary risks.
Our philosophy is based on sound investment theory, including recognising the role investor behaviour plays in decision-making, backed up by empirical evidence.
It’s built around five key principles:
Having faith in the market
Markets – capitalism – have created huge amounts of wealth for the global population and will continue to do so. Investing provides capital for the wealth creators in an economy and returns are the reward for their investment. It’s a robust system and will continue way beyond any of our retirements.
Accepting that risk and return go hand in hand
There’s no escaping the fact that greater risk equals higher returns. We make sure that we take appropriate risks for our customers to suit their attitude to investment risk and the rewards they’re seeking. We’ve been in the business too long not to realise that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Letting the markets do the hard work
The return on your investment is generated by the markets as well as choosing the right stocks to invest in. Trying to beat the markets isn’t a successful investment strategy, letting the market do the heavy lifting is. That’s why the structure of your portfolio is key.
Taking a long-term view
Being patient is hugely important for a successful long-term investment plan. In the short term, returns can be minimal (or worse) but even small increases growing at a compound rate for a long period of time rate will create big rewards.
Ensuring a disciplined approach
Discipline, too, is vitally important. Markets tend to punish people who make hasty decisions and deviate from well-thought out and well-tested portfolios. We advise our clients to ignore the market noise and what looks like quick wins and stick with their long-term plans.
Building your portfolio
We construct our clients’ portfolios to ensure they are the most suitable, robust and successful for them by:
- Choosing the right assets
From cash to equities, fine wine to Ecuadorian rainforests, there’s a wide choice of asset classes to choose from. Our choices are based on specific selection criteria so we can continue to review our decisions and strategy.
- Portfolio components
Portfolios are made up of two types of assets: growth and defensive. Growth assets have higher returns – but also higher risks – so portfolios include defensive assets as well to balance them out.
Choosing the right portfolio for you
Finding the right balance between growth and defensive assets is one of the most important decisions we’ll make together and will depend on three things: your tolerance to investment risk and what feels comfortable, what fall in the value of your portfolio you could financially cope with, and how much risk is needed to reach your goals.
To help us we use various tools, such as cash flow modelling and psychometric testing, as well as discussing it in detail with you.
Systematic vs. judgemental funds
We’ve spent years honing and developing our system to make it efficient, methodical and objective to provide a strategy that’s most likely to help our customers achieve their goals. We focus on low cost and low activity, sometimes called passive investing or index tracking.
We don’t do active investing – when your fund manager can make subjective forecasts of short-term market prices and try to beat the market. It relies too heavily on one person making decisions that more than outweigh their costs most of the time. Working out what part of a fund manager’s success is luck and what is skill is almost impossible, so we rely on research and discipline instead.
A systematic approach
Guided by our investment philosophy and process, our approach to advising and managing your funds will ensure that we maximise your investment through our systematically best-in-class funds.
By maintaining a well-disciplined approach, managing risk and taking a long-term view, we’ve helped thousands of clients achieve their investment goals and we’ll do the same for you.
Spending time with my adviser Simon allows me to sleep at night. He wants to understand what is important to me and is interested in the grand plan and what this means for me.– Lynn Page