PKS Investment Advisors LLC

Financial Planning

In the midst of global economic uncertainty, stock market plunges and investment company upheaval, investors have a difficult time remaining calm and sticking to an investment plan. All too often, there is no plan, better known as an “investment policy statement.” While no investor is immune to the effects of such a global financial crisis, PKS Investment Advisors recommends that clients stick to their investment plans, changing those plans only as their individual circumstances change.

Although history reveals that market plunges are nothing new, investor reactions to such collapses are often viewed with complete surprise when they occur. “Preparing our clients with the knowledge and understanding that bear markets will occur multiple times throughout their lives underscores a primary tenet of our working together,” explains Winn Booth, President of PKS. “That tenet is to carefully understand our client’s financial goals, and their need, ability and willingness to take investment risk, before deciding on how their money will be invested.”

Investment Advisor Matt Repass, a Certified Retirement Financial Advisor of PKS says, “We help design risk-adjusted financial plans to carry our clients through their lifetime, weathering any financial storm.”

“The Salisbury firm’s mission is to bring clarity to clients’ financial matters, thereby freeing their time to pursue the things that matter most in their lives.”

PKS Investment Advisors is an independent registered investment advisor. As such, the firm represents the interests of its clients rather than a brokerage firm or insurance company. Repass adds, “We are able to choose investments from the full range of what the market offers, selecting those that best fit our client’s investment objectives. And we select only low-cost investment products because we know that each dollar incurred for product expense clearly reduces investment returns. Our clients’ assets are in the custody of an independent and financially strong institution, Charles Schwab & Company, and we maintain sound internal controls over client assets to further the level of transparency.”

“Our philosophy and mission is to assist our clients in developing, designing, implementing and monitoring their investment and financial plans. Our clients span those accumulating wealth for retirement, those retired living on that wealth, along with those whose focus lies in proper disposition of their wealth when they are gone,” says Repass.

Commenting on PKS’s current outlook, Repass says, “We have not recommended that anyone ‘sell-out’ and sit on the sidelines in cash waiting for the tide to turn. Many academic research studies have reported that such marketing timing produces lower investment returns than the market averages over extended time periods. We prefer more investment diversification than we usually observe in portfolios that people bring to us. But the real key, after first developing a well-constructed plan, is to simply stick with it through times like these.”

The firm is affiliated with PKS & Company, P.A., one of the largest and most respected C.P.A. firms on Maryland’s Eastern shore. That relationship enables PKS Investment Advisors to extend the income and estate tax planning services of the C.P.A. firm to its clients under one roof. By providing guidance and diligent stewardship, the Salisbury firm’s mission is to bring clarity to clients’ financial matters, thereby freeing their time to pursue the things that matter most in their lives.

“We believe that even in the darkest clouds of this uncertainty a ‘silver lining’ exists,” says Repass. “This is an opportunity to those who are ready to be proactive at times like these rather than reactive. Throughout our current financial crisis each of us has probably adjusted our personal ‘tolerance for risk’ with our money and by being proactive now we can better position ourselves to emerge from this storm more protected and ready to withstand financial storms of the future.”

PKS Investment Advisors LLC
1801 Sweetbay Drive
Salisbury, MD 21804
410.546.5600

www.pksadvisors.com

Pictured: Front Row Left to Right: Winn Booth, Barbara McEleney. Back: Matthew Repass, Gigi Lekites, John M. Stern, Jr.
Photography: Kyle Hughes