We Use Technology to Reduce Costs and Raise Returns
Everyone knows lowering your costs while maintaining your returns means you'll have more money. What everyone doesn't know is what a difference this makes.
Investment costs like fees, commissions and sales charges matter!
These fees include mutual fund marketing, advisor, custodian and trading fees, as well as taxes.
The more you pay, the less you will earn in return. The advice marketplace for individual investors and small institutions is dominated by high cost brokerage firms, mutual funds and insurance companies that sell commission products, and multiple fee investment planners that charge fees on top of fees. Those are costly options.
Astute investors seek a cost effective investment advisor and BerkAdvisory is the alternative to the high cost structure of the investment advice industry.Mostly through word of mouth, BerkAdvisoryhas grown steadily since inception from a few friends and family clients in 2002 to nearly 50 clients and $100 million of assets in 2009.
Clients include individual investors, trusts,family estates, endowments, foundations, and small to medium size business pension plans.
With direct ownership of stocks we aim to lower costs from high active MF fees, taxes and inflation.
Mutual Funds are Old-Time Investing: Obsolete & Expensive
The median equity mutual fund in 2007 charges investors total fees of 1.47% per year (Rapidan charges 1%). This figure doesnot include any sales loads or brokerage fees (see below) that may be incurred, which can add up quickly.
Some funds have upfront loads (sales fee) and 12B-1 fees of as much as 8.5%, so investors have dug themselves a deep hole even before their investment has had a chance to earn a return. The sales load and 12b-1 fees are used to compensate financial advisers for their services. Did you know that many brokers, planners and advisors get paid twice for recommending the same fund! Once from you. Once from the fund.
You pay BerkAdvisory once - we take care of most of the other investment related costs. And we only receive fees from our clients - not from brokers selling products or large asset management companies selling funds.
Paying these high fees could pay off for investors, assuming the performance of these funds was consistently superior.
However, studies show that over the long term, mutual funds trail the broad market averages, such as the S&P 500 index.
Brokerage Trading Costs
Most stock brokers charge commissions for trading which can make it expensive to build a diversified portfolio and invest consistently.
These high costs discourage investors from selling stocks when they should and applying tax optimization strategies for fear of high trading costs.
As a result, investors take on more risk than they need to, or sacrifice significant expected returns.
Rapidan Capital pays pennies per share at most of its brokers and even has negotiated to bring our clients UNLIMITED COMMISSION-FREE TRADING on MOST SECURITIES in exchange for a low annual fee at Folio Institutional!
