Buy-and-Hold

The Merriman Buy-and-Hold program is designed for investors who seek long-term growth in a tax-efficient portfolio. We didn’t invent the buy-and-hold strategy; it’s based on more than 50 years of research by Nobel Prize winning and other top academic researchers, which shows that financial markets do well in the long run, despite periods of volatility. Compared with the S&P 500 Index, the Merriman Buy-and-Hold program has historically fulfilled its objective to increase returns and reduce risk.

Our program is built on worldwide equity diversification across a range of asset classes, using mutual funds to create a sophisticated asset allocation model. We chose specific proportions of asset classes after careful and extensive analysis, tilting moderately toward small company and value funds to take advantage of the historically superior long-term returns in those asset classes.

In this program we use bond funds to smooth out the ups and downs of stock market volatility. We are able to address any level of risk, from conservative to aggressive according to the needs of each individual client, by adjusting the balance of the equity and bond portions of the portfolio.

Any buy-and-hold program requires investors to make a commitment and ours is no exception. Frequently changing asset allocation or investment programs could lead to lower returns. We’re here to help you stay the course, offering advice and guidance to counter the emotional element that causes many buy-and-holders to fail.

Our financial advisors will periodically rebalance accounts in this program to maintain the appropriate portfolio weights by selling assets in the classes that have done well, and buying assets in those that haven’t. This may be counter-intuitive for you, but it’s the only way to reliably buy low and sell high.

We use equity mutual funds from Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) – which are only available to institutional clients or through Registered Investment Advisors like Merriman – and bond funds from both DFA and Vanguard. These funds:

• are no-load
• have low expenses
• are tax efficient
• are passively managed

The Merriman Buy-and-Hold program is well suited to taxable accounts and qualified retirement plans, such as IRAs. In addition, we use tax-managed funds and municipal bonds in taxable accounts for even greater tax efficiency.

To find out more about this program, call us at 1.800.423.4893 or click here to schedule a free consultation with one of our financial advisors.

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