Hey there, everyone. 

It’s Chris Rowe – Founder and Chief Investment Officer here at Avalon.

I’m writing this message today to talk to you about an important change that will be taking effect on July 1, 2023. 

As of that date, the minimum investment amount for a portfolio at Avalon will be increasing from $500,000 to $1 million.  

If you’ve been on the fence about whether you should switch advisors or take that step of letting go and trusting a professional advisor for the first time, and you have a portfolio valued between $500,000 and $1 million, now would be the time to set up a conversation with us, just to see if it feels right. 

Our team approaches the conversation in a way that’s comfortable for everyone. We know the idea of starting a relationship with a money manager is not a small step so we make it an easy step. No salespeople are involved. Just a professional conversation that will probably help you even if you decide it’s not the best time.  

There are a few things you should know. For starters, the reasons for the increase. 

When we raise the minimum portfolio value, it’s not meant to exclude anyone, but instead, it’s an effort to give us the ability to spend the necessary time with each client. If your portfolio value is $500,000, I want you to know that you, as a client, are just as important to us as someone with a $5 million portfolio value.  

You see, Avalon is different from most registered investment advisory firms, starting with the fact we are also a money management firm, unlike most RIAs. In fact, RIAs tend to reach out to us, asking us to manage their client’s investment portfolios.  

Of course, the fact that we are the money managers as opposed to farming your money out to others (which is still a common practice that works for some), means lower costs.

But the other is the fact that the type of clients we attract tend to enjoy having a “shorter distance” between them and the person actually managing their wealth. And that’s me, Chris Rowe. 

We aim to bring individual investors who have a higher level of sophistication than the average. We seek to work with qualified individual investors – folks who are seeking out ways to invest their portfolios with a higher “risk-adjusted” return.  

We make an investment, of time, in our clients right from the beginning. More time spent understanding how it all works means less time down the road because there’s a strong level of comfort when you’ve invested the time upfront.  

We make sure our investors understand potential volatility levels. It’s pretty easy to explain and understand. There’s no pressure. 

When you’re our client, we meet you where you are in your understanding of money management. For many folks, that’s right near the beginning. We welcome it and we refuse to do you the disservice that we think most advisors do, which is ignoring conversations about volatility (risk levels). 

We adjust these levels to meet your comfort. We tell it like it is.  

Most individual investors think only about potential profits without adjusting for the risk taken. And I understand the reason why. Hardly anybody understands risk mathematically. And why should they? It truly is sophisticated stuff. 

Risk levels are nearly invisible to many investors. They might brag about making 76% in the stock market in the last year but if you ask that same investor what the risk was, it’s difficult to get an answer.  

And once risk is understood, investors eventually realize that when asked how they performed in the last year, an answer like “we made 76%” just isn’t enough information to tell us anything.  

Risk management is the most important part of money management, but taking a close second place in terms of importance is “allocation” or what you’re invested in. As you may know, our secret sauce is the fact that we are Relative Strength investors.

Our Relative Strength approach, coupled with a personalized risk management strategy, seeks to outperform benchmarks over time and safeguard investors’ nest eggs during turbulent times.

Now before I sign off, there’s something extremely important you need to know about the industry we operate in.  

I can tell you firsthand, knowing probably hundreds of investment advisors, that the financial advisor industry today is primarily focused on acquiring new clients rather than retaining existing ones.  

It’s a simple model. If the company can get more new clients faster than they lose them, it’s a win. And that’s always been the number one thing about the business that pisses me off.  

At Avalon, we are under no pressure to meet a quota in new client acquisition. We run the ball down the field a little bit and we stop and digest what we’ve learned. We’re a privately held company that answers only to our clients, not shareholders or a board. 

Avalon’s investment strategy is unique and tailored to every single client’s risk tolerance, prioritizing risk management over market timing or one-off stock picks.  

One reason we like to spend a bit of extra time with new clients in the early stages is our unique approach to investing requires clients to unlearn some of the conventional-but-wrong wisdom and adopt a more sophisticated and contemporary strategy. 

This increase in minimum portfolio value reflects that unique approach and all the time and dedication we put into every single client’s accounts.

Now, you may be asking what does this mean for you?

Well, if you are currently an Avalon client, you will not be affected by this change. 

You will continue to receive the same level of service.

But, if you are considering becoming a client, you will need to get on our calendar and sign up for a consultation.

The accounts don’t necessarily have to be fully transferred over by the July 1 deadline. As long as we’ve begun the process of getting the business relationship started, you’re fine.  

We have an Investment Advisors contract that we send to anyone before giving individualized personalized investment advice. It just makes giving you advice completely legal and doesn’t require any financial commitment from you.

The Final Thing I’ll Say Here is This:

Remember I mentioned most Registered Investment Advisors are not also money managers?

We, at Avalon, are both.  

That means we manage your investments in-house AND we have investment advisors in-house that can talk with you about your goals or what your suggested goals should be.  

Now, if you have less than that minimum portfolio value, that’s okay. We can still manage your money. We just wouldn’t be able to assign you an in-house investment advisor.

If you would like to talk to us about linking up with your advisor so that we can manage some or all of your liquid assets as a partnership with your advisor, let us know when you sign up for your free consultation.  

We will show you how to connect us with your advisor and we can begin the process. You’ll still work with your advisor, but we’ll be doing the money-managing for you with our proven and sophisticated investment methods.

It’s a win for everyone and your advisor will probably thank you.  

Now as always, if you have any questions about this change, please do not hesitate to contact us.

And if you’re interested in investing with us here at Avalon, click here now and schedule a free consultation with one of our advisors right away.

But don’t delay, as you know the deadline is July 1st, which is just a short time away, and we’ll fully honor anyone with the $500,000 portfolio minimum until that time.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.