Portfolio Reviews are a service designed primarily for investors that manage their own portfolios, yet want one or more periodic reviews of their portfolio and an outside opinion. Our Annual Portfolio Review is a low cost, no continuing obligation option that allows investors to minimize ongoing fees, yet get expert guidance. Our compensation is based on time spend, however the time and cost can be limited based on the client's specific instructions and goals for the review. The initial review will generally focus on whether there are potential problems or mistakes in your portfolio structure, asset allocation, or specific securities. Costs for future reviews (if you choose to continue engaging us) tend to be lower due to the fact that we will have your information on file and the focus will generally be on changes (in your circumstances, goals, and market conditions) and appropriate rebalances rather than a complete review. Other areas of focus tend to include an analysis of whether you are maximizing expected return for your specified risk tolerance and whether you are taking unnecessary risks. Another common focus is on costs and whether you are paying excessive loads, fees, and/or commissions relative to alternatives.

A simple (uncommon) example of a problem would be an investor buying municipal bonds in a retirement account (or an investor in a low tax bracket buying municipal bonds). A more common case involves funds and/or ETFs that are virtually identical to alternatives that have lower costs (for example some people own index funds that have significantly higher costs than alternatives and consistently underperform as a result). Other common issues are investors taking on too much unnecessary risk, failing to properly diversify (without appropriate upside or probability of excess reward), paying excess or unnecessary fees, and failing to account for tax effects. By engaging Proficient for an initial review, do-it-yourself investors will often learn there are better options (with better risk/return tradeoffs) than they are currently employing, or they will find via a favorable review that they don't have any major problems and thus will sleep better and be more comfortable with their current strategy.