How we work with Our Clients

Our job as your advisors and wealth managers is to ensure that you will be able to live happier and have the money you need when you need it. Comprehensive financial planning is the essential first step in successful investing.

Initial Consultation

We learn a little about you and your needs. You learn a little about us, our planning process, our investment philosophy and track record managing investments. We both get to know a little about each other and we decide whether there is a fit between us. Our goal at Sunrise is to create long-term mutually beneficial relationships with our clients. Of course, you are free to break the advisory relationship at any time.

 Financial Planning

After you have decided to work with us to achieve your financial goals, we schedule a second consultation. Our planning process is exhaustive and thorough and can require as much as 50 hours of work by us.

Before we begin to construct your plan, you will sign a letter of engagement which outlines the scope of our work.

• After our discussion and formal presentation, we review our standard contract in detail including the section that explains the initial fee and annual fee reset policy.
• We provide a complete list of documents and expense data we need to complete the financial planning process.

We review the financial plan with you. We address any additional questions or concerns you may have. We present our initial as well as on-going recommendations to you in a report that is designed to focus attention on all issues beginning with the big picture ones. A typical report contains the following:

• A summary of the on-going process we employ and our basic investment philosophy. This serves as a reminder of our service in summary form and also provides the criteria you should use in evaluating the work you have done and will do with us.
• Both qualitative and quantitative analysis of the current market and trends.
• The reasons you first decided to work with Sunrise, your goals and issues when you first began working with us, and the progress that we have made toward those goals and the areas you need to focus on going forward. This section also illustrates the changes in your net worth over the years of us working together.
• A summary of a cash-flow based Monte Carlo scenario analysis, and when appropriates a summary of spending and/or other cash-flow-related data. Meeting objectives requires cash-flow on both a current and future basis and can be generated from a variety of sources: earning more, saving more, spending less, paying less taxes, strong investment returns, inheritance, and lastly from winning the lottery. Of these factors, some are more under your control than others and we can concentrate on those that can be achieved relatively easily to hard ones that need some sacrifice.
• A summary of the composition and performance of your accounts with Sunrise.

Wealth Management

We consider your Return requirements, Risk tolerance, time horizon(s), Liquidity constraints, any tax and legal issues in formulating an Investment Policy statement (IPS) using information gathered in the interviews.  The IPS outlines the individual client's tolerance for risk, establishes investments and strategies we may use to accomplish our objectives.  It eliminates investments and strategies that are not appropriate or suitable. We establish the appropriate benchmark with which to measure your investment results.

Once we both are comfortable with the IPS, we custom design a portfolio with appropriate Asset Allocation and consistent with the IPS. Using the best, unbiased investment research and the techniques of financial engineering, we construct individual investment portfolios that are customized to fit the needs of our clients. Proper asset allocation is the most important component of long term investment success.  As much as 90% of your portfolios' performance can be attributed to proper asset allocation. Specific investments are selected and the portfolio is activated. 

We sign an Investment Management Contract (IMC) with you.  Your IMC defines your portfolio and the relevant performance measurement benchmarks. 

We also begin the account setup/transfer process during this phase of our work. We use Interactive Brokers as the Custodian for our Client Portfolios. If your account is set up and fully funded, we implement your asset allocation and begin full time portfolio management shortly after contract (IMC) signing.

Monitor, review and communication

We monitor the individual investments in your portfolio on a daily basis.  We review all clients' portfolios every two weeks.  Our clients receive a weekly e-mail with an update of current market conditions.

We will also send you monthly portfolio updates. You can also check your portfolio at Interactive Brokers website 24/7. At a minimum we schedule an in-person plan review semi-annually or if there was any life event.

Our clients receive a personal telephone call every at least once a month from their advisor, in order to answer questions or concerns or to simply say Hello.  Of course, you are free to call us or drop by anytime you desire. Our clients are encouraged to call us without hesitation regarding any questions they may have.  Frequent communications with our clients is imperative to high levels of satisfaction and success of long term relationships.