Hong-Tsun Simon, CFA

I've been working in the investment industry for over 30 years and I love helping clients and learning new things every day. Earning clients' trust is extremely important to me. It means listening to clients and understanding their objectives and circumstances, having frequent and open communications, and making sure everyone is on the same page. Investment management is a lot more than customizing portfolios to meet client needs.

To make sure a financial plan is in place, it is important to collaborate with clients' accountants, attorneys, and insurance advisers. To me, it would be the greatest honor if clients view me as a financial quarterback, helping with retirement planning, education funding for grandchildren, gifting strategies to charities and future generations. Those are all topics that are important to clients, and I'm happy to help however I can.

As a senior wealth manager at MONTAG, my investment approach is long-term focused, flexible, and disciplined. I believe having a long-term horizon gives us an advantage because it allows us to ignore short-term noises and focuses on more important metrics that impact companies' earnings growth potential. For example, their operating efficiencies, their investment decisions, and target markets. My core holdings tend to be industry leaders, companies that have stayed competitive and dominated their fields.

That usually means relatively low turnover of the portfolio, except in the technology and the healthcare areas where innovations could warrant more changes. Being flexible is also key in the uncertain investment world. It means looking beyond the U.S. stock market, adapting to technological and economic changes, and perhaps most importantly, keeping an open mind to be challenged by new data and ideas. Being flexible also means constructing portfolios around clients' legacy holdings, preferences, and restrictions.

In the investment world, risk is the area where we have the most control. Being disciplined is an effective way to avoid taking unnecessary risk. For example, buying stocks at reasonable prices, not chasing returns, and not taking outsize positions in any one stock or any one sector. These are the different ways that I try to control risk and preserve capital. When a portfolio loses 10% it needs to gain 11% to break even.

So, playing defense is as important as playing offense. During market turmoil, having the discipline to stick with an investment plan, rebalancing, and taking advantage of lower stock prices also helps with long-term returns. Regarding investments, the asset allocation decision, or how much to invest in stocks and bonds, is key in determining clients' return and risk experience. Another way to look at it is to decide how much money to put in the safe bucket and how much in the risk bucket.

Hopefully, this approach will help clients sleep better at night knowing that a market correction may not impact their lifestyle while they wait for the stock markets to recover. I enjoy the intellectual challenges of managing portfolios. Financial markets teach me to be humble, to stay curious, and to keep learning. I'm also fortunate to learn from my clients, their success, generosity, and their experience.

Money is a resource. I hope to help clients gain financial security and grow their financial assets so they can use this resource to enrich future generations.