The income phase is different math than the accumulation phase. Distributions, tax brackets, Medicare, Social Security, and the order dollars come out of which account. It stops being a set-and-forget model. It becomes an active, year-by-year job.
For thirty years, the retirement advice industry has trained people to do one thing. Put money in. Pick a target-date fund. Do not touch it. That works, roughly, until the day you retire. Then almost every variable flips.
Suddenly the question is not "what return am I getting." It is which account do we pull from first, and what does that do to next year's Medicare premium, and does this capital gain push us into the next tax bracket, and should we front-load a Roth conversion before RMDs start, and what happens if one spouse predeceases the other and the survivor gets kicked into the single-filer bracket.
Each of those has a defensible answer. Most advisors do not run the math. We do.
A real document that spells out your target allocation, rebalancing triggers, concentration limits, and distribution mechanics. Every recommendation we make is defensible against the IPS. If you do not have one, you do not have a plan. You have a pile of positions.
Ten percent concentration ceiling on any single security. Forty percent cap on any single fund. Sector bands. The rules that keep a concentrated win from becoming a concentrated loss.
For clients building income portfolios, or overlaying value, quality, or dividend factors on a core, the tilts are deliberate and documented — not the byproduct of whatever was on a brokerage firm’s recommended list last quarter.
Rebalancing in a taxable account is not free. Lot-level harvesting, asset-location decisions, and the interaction with your income for the year all matter. We run it against your tax picture. Not against a calendar.
The most valuable thing we do in a thirty-year relationship is sit between your buy-and-sell button and your emotions during the three or four drawdowns you will live through. That is where the behavior gap opens. It is where we close it.
Before a position enters the model, it goes through documented criteria. Expense ratio. Liquidity. Correlation. Manager tenure. Tax efficiency. No on-a-whim additions, ever.
The true value of a financial advisor often manifests itself as being a behavioral investment counselor.
— Nick Murray, on the work that compounds
Portfolio advising is the structural backbone under every other service we offer. It matters most where the stakes are concrete.
We pull every account together into one picture. We identify what you own and why. We draft a written investment policy that matches your situation. Nothing moves until the IPS is agreed on.
Positions migrate toward the policy on a tax-aware schedule. If the situation is a concentrated stock, that may mean staging trades across multiple tax years. If it is a clean-slate rollover, the target allocation goes in immediately.
Quarterly portfolio reviews. Annual IPS revisit. We are the team you call before you do anything reactive. That is not optional scope. That is the core service.
RSUs can be a great benefit. They can also quietly turn into a problem you do not notice until the wrong day. A plain-English decision framework.
Read the piece →A lot of retirees do retirement income the way they do home repairs. The problem is not effort. The problem is order. Here is the plain-English framework.
Read the piece →Roth conversions get pitched like a magic trick. Real life is messier. A bracket-based framework for sizing conversions and avoiding the five common mistakes.
Read the piece →No sales pitch. We'll talk about where you are, what the next three to five years look like, and whether this is the kind of work you need in your corner.
A 30-minute introduction. No pressure. Tell me a bit about your situation and I'll reach out within one business day.
I'll be in touch within one business day. If anything urgent, please call (718) 551-7131.
Something went wrong sending your message. Please email Dave@perrottowealth.com directly, or call (718) 551-7131.