Starting Point

When you go to the doctor's office for your annual check-up, what happens first? Generally, you're presented with a questionnaire to confirm that your health is similar to what it was at your last visit and to see whether anything has changed since then. This allows the doctor to establish a baseline and provides a starting point for the check-up. Our risk profiles work much the same way: they're designed to help us understand how you feel about making — and losing — money. The more accurately we can gauge that, the better we can build a portfolio you'll feel comfortable with. As with the doctor's questionnaire, we view the risk profile as a starting point, both for new clients and for ongoing account reviews.

Risk Profile Questionnaire

This questionnaire takes around five minutes to complete, and it has two sections.

The first is your investment time frame. An investor with a long time frame should be able to weather short-term fluctuations, so their strategy can focus more on long-term growth. An investor who needs the money in the near future should focus more on capital preservation, so that they don't experience losses right when they need to withdraw funds. For example, if an investor is in their 20s and just starting to save in a retirement account, their money typically shouldn't sit in a money market for the next 40 years. On the other hand, even an aggressive investor who needs all of their funds within the next six months generally shouldn't have that money in highly volatile investments. Time frame, then, is the first thing the questionnaire analyzes.

The second section looks at how you feel about making and losing money. Five questions address this. If you feel uncomfortable answering them on your own, we're happy to work through them together.

How to take the Risk Profile?

The risk profile is available on our client portal. If you don't see it, let me know and I'll send it to you. Alternatively, you can use the link below to access a PDF that you can fill out and email back to us.