Wealth WatchAdvisors

Professional money management

Investing shouldn’t be a side project.

Most people don’t have the time — or, honestly, the interest — to actively manage their own portfolio while running a career or a business. The point of delegating management is to stop paying the cost of doing it yourself.

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The premise

We’ve all heard the term.

Jack of all trades, master of none. This is especially true when it comes to investing. Many investors try to master the art of buying and selling equities on top of working 40 to 50 hours per week in their trade. The reality, however, is that investing for retirement should not be treated as an afterthought or a hobby.

Relying on a professional money management firm should produce far superior results. Below are three common mistakes that may be avoided by using a money manager — mistakes that cost individual investors real money, year after year, in ways most of them never notice until retirement is closer than they planned.

Three mistakes

What DIY investing quietly costs.

Here are three common mistakes a money manager helps investors avoid. Each of them is easy to describe, hard to eliminate without help, and expensive over a lifetime of investing.

Mistake one

Emotional mistakes

Decisions made on fear, greed, and ego.

There is a relatively new field of psychology called behavioral finance. Behavioral finance involves the study of how and why people make irrational financial decisions. The majority of the time, these decisions are based on emotions such as fear, greed, and ego.

Emotional mistakes may be minimized by working with professional money managers who actively monitor your portfolios. They make decisions based on facts, not emotions, with your desired goal in mind.

Mistake two

Timing mistakes

Reactive decisions in a market that rewards discipline.

Most investors don’t have the time required on a daily basis to monitor market trends, statistics, global events, and more. Research is the key to making educated investment decisions.

Timing mistakes occur when research of certain equities — or of the market as a whole — is random due to an investor’s inability to constantly monitor every situation. Again, using a professional money manager in this capacity should produce much better results.

Mistake three

Lack-of-experience mistakes

The wrong tool for the job.

Just as you wouldn’t call your CPA to fix a plumbing issue in the house, investing properly requires experience and expertise in the field of finance. Unfortunately, there are several large firms that encourage investors to have a DIY attitude towards saving for retirement.

There are numerous websites that allow you to establish your own trading accounts, and even tempt you to trade on margin. For a small percentage of the population, this might work. For the majority, it is a horrible idea. DIY investing may also result in huge losses during market downturns.

What a money manager actually does

Not stock picking. Process.

Professional money management is less glamorous than the TV version. It’s mostly discipline — done continuously, by people whose only job it is, with tools retail investors don’t have.

Monitors daily, not annually

Institutional managers check positions, allocations, and risk metrics continuously — not at quarter-end. The portfolio gets attention as the market moves, not retroactively.

Rebalances on process, not feeling

Rebalancing follows rules and thresholds, not gut. The mechanics are set in advance and executed without waiting to see how the week turns out.

Sizes risk to the plan

A manager’s job is to align risk with the allocation target the plan sets — not to chase the highest number they can produce in any given quarter.

Coordinates across multiple sleeves

In a multi-manager portfolio, each manager runs a portion of the assets. The advisor keeps the sleeves coordinated so the household’s overall exposure stays where the plan says it should be.

The Wealth Watch approach

A multi-manager portfolio at Schwab.

Wealth Watch portfolios are custodied at Charles Schwab & Co. and held in your name, not ours. We never take possession of client assets — we advise on them. Your accounts are visible to you at any time through Schwab’s client portal.

Within that account, we implement a multi-manager portfolio — blending selections from several institutional third-party money managers so you have exposure to multiple research processes and investment philosophies, not a single house call. Your WWA advisor coordinates the sleeves, monitors allocations, and keeps the portfolio tied to the plan.

  • Schwab custody
  • Multi-manager lineup
  • SEC-registered RIA

Who this is for

People who have better uses for the hours.

Professional money management is for investors whose time is better spent elsewhere — or whose retirement is close enough that experiments aren’t the right instrument.

Busy professionals

You have a career that actually needs your attention. Time spent managing your own money is time not spent on the work that pays for the accounts in the first place.

Business owners

Owner attention is the scarcest resource in any business. Delegating investment management frees up the hours you need for the operations, sales, and strategy decisions only you can make.

Pre-retirees and retirees

The assets you’re about to draw on are the wrong place to be learning by experience. Delegating to institutional managers is a more considered use of the money you actually depend on.

What management covers

The service, end to end.

A professional money-management relationship with Wealth Watch covers more than the portfolio itself. The advisor stays in the loop, the plan stays current, and the reporting comes directly from the custodian.

  • Portfolio construction and ongoing rebalancing
  • Multi-manager sleeve coordination
  • Ongoing risk and allocation monitoring
  • Tax-aware trading and loss harvesting when appropriate
  • Quarterly and annual advisor reviews
  • Schwab client-portal access at any time
  • Direct statements and tax documents from Schwab
  • Plan integration — portfolio tied to your actual plan

Questions

Common questions about money management.

A financial advisor builds the plan — goals, allocation, risk tolerance, tax and estate coordination. A money manager implements the investment portion — the daily buys, sells, rebalancing, and risk monitoring inside the portfolio. Wealth Watch does the advisory work and coordinates a portfolio of institutional money managers who handle the investment implementation.

Any single manager has a single research team, a single philosophy, and a single way of being wrong. A multi-manager portfolio blends several of them so the household’s outcome isn’t tied to one firm’s view. It also smooths performance across regimes — the manager who underperforms in one environment is usually not the same manager who underperforms in the next.

At Charles Schwab & Co. — one of the largest U.S. custodians — in accounts in your name. Wealth Watch has trading and fee-debit authority on the account. We never take possession of client assets. Statements, tax forms, and logins come directly from Schwab.

Management fees are asset-based and disclosed in writing before you sign. The exact rate depends on portfolio size and the managers used. There are no commissions and no sales loads; all fees are transparent and billed directly from the custodian.

Yes. Clients get direct online access to their Schwab accounts at any time — balances, holdings, transactions, statements, tax documents. Nothing about delegating management reduces your visibility into your own money.

Manager review is part of the job. We watch each manager’s performance, process, and alignment with the sleeve they run. If a manager’s process changes or their fit for the portfolio deteriorates, we replace them. A multi-manager structure means replacing one manager does not require rebuilding the whole portfolio.

Take the next step

Request a portfolio review.

Send over your current statements — any custodian, any structure. We’ll evaluate the allocation, the managers, the fees, and the fit against your plan. You leave the call knowing what a multi-manager portfolio at Schwab would look like from here.

Request a portfolio review
855-822-3708Mon–Fri, 7:30 AM – 3:30 PM MST

Keep reading

Management is one of three pillars.

The plan sets the goals. Diversification shapes the portfolio. Professional management keeps it on track. Each is its own topic.

Investment products involve risk, including potential loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Information on this page is educational and does not constitute tax, legal, or investment advice. Consult with a Wealth Watch Advisors advisor and your tax professional before investing.