About - Aznar Financial Advisors, LLC

About

How are we Different?

We serve our clients in a Fiduciary capacity. This means that we put our clients’ interests first. Following a fiduciary standard is different from how many “financial advisors” work today. Many advisors are paid (fully or partially) by commissions. This means that they unfortunately may have incentives to promote products and services in order to maximize their income. These advisors often work for large financial services firms known as Broker-Dealers. The loyalty of these advisors is to their employer and not necessarily to their client.
As fee-only advisors, we feel that our advice is unbiased and objective.
We are compassionate and sensitive to each client’s needs. We will work with you to make the financial planning experience comfortable and enjoyable.
We know that personal finance may not be your language, and we will communicate accordingly. Our goal to give each client the attention s/he deserves.
When you call us, you will always speak with the same person. You will not need to review your situation with someone different each time you call.
Choosing a Certified Financial Planner® practitioner allows you to be confident that you are working with a financial advisor with a high level of competence and commitment.
We are easily accessible by phone and / or e-mail and are diligent about returning your calls and e-mail.

How We Help

The following are some of the things to know about us:

We want to see your money work as hard as you do
We will provide guidance on establishing a safety net for your family
We will try to help save you money on taxes
We will help you build a solid foundation for the future
We try to help simplify your life
We try to reduce stressful decision-making
We will ease your record-keeping burdens
We will help you to create and preserve your wealth
We will work with you to generate a steady stream of retirement income
If you have a goal of leaving a legacy for loved ones, we will help you with this process
Ultimately, we try to help you achieve the goals that you have set for yourself and your family

Click here to learn more about how Aznar Financial Advisors, LLC worked with a client to help him and his family. See page 11 of the Financial Planning Association’s membership brochure.

If you would like to enlist the services of a Certified Financial Planner®, please contact us to schedule an initial consultation.

AFA, LLC will help you prioritize your goals and objectives and develop a sensible financial plan designed to address your individual needs and ultimately achieve your goals.

Investment Philosophy

AFA maintains the following core investment beliefs:

Active Versus Passive
We believe primarily in passive investing. Passively managed funds should serve as the building block of a portfolio since these funds allow individuals to participate intelligently in the stock market, by offering diversification and low expenses. We primarily invest in mutual funds managed by Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) and the Vanguard Group as well as Exchange Traded Funds as the building blocks of our clients’ portfolio. Please click here for an excellent article about DFA and Vanguard mutual funds.

Asset Allocation
We believe that asset allocation is a significant determinant of long-term portfolio performance. Because we do not believe in market timing, we do not recommend the use of sector managers.

We believe in maintaining a strategic allocation and only infrequently revise that allocation. We believe in rebalancing to the strategic allocation. However, the influence of taxes and transaction costs leads us to conclude that rebalancing with fairly wide bands is the most appropriate solution.

Time Diversification
We believe that the relative risk of increasing equity exposure decreases as the time horizon of the goal increases. We do not believe that any “investment” should be made for a goal with less than a five-year time horizon. Funds required in fewer than five years should be placed in money markets or fixed income securities (e.g., CDs, Treasuries) with maturity dates equal to or less than the goals’ time horizons.

Growth versus Value
We believe in the conclusion of the Fama/French research that, over time, value equity portfolios will provide superior performance. However, we also believe that eliminating growth allocations will result in a divergence from the broad markets that clients may find unacceptable. We therefore believe in incorporating both growth and value in our portfolios, but include a value tilt to take advantage of this value premium.

Ongoing Management
We believe that there should be regular review of a client’s situation to determine if he is continuing to move in the direction of achieving his goals. This includes revisions in strategic allocations as a result of revised assumptions or changing client circumstances or goals. Our responsibility is to help our clients “stays the course” and do so with a minimum of emotional pain. We believe that the focus should always be the client and the achievement of his goals, not the performance of the portfolio.

In Summary
We believe that although you cannot control the performance of the market, you can control the expenses you incur when you invest and the timing of the taxes you pay as you invest. We believe that you can regulate the amount of risk that you take with an appropriately diversified portfolio of cash, bond and stock funds. We recommend no-load, low cost, tax-efficient (when necessary) mutual funds and exchange traded funds in an effort to minimize expenses and negative tax consequences. We believe that investing in a well-diversified portfolio over the long-term with low expenses and high tax efficiency is the best way to achieve your goals.

TEN investment truisms

Over long periods, stocks will have greater total returns than bonds. There is ample evidence to demonstrate that, over time, stocks perform better than bonds. It is an economic principal that increased risk must offer increased return, or no one would willingly take the risk. The premium is the excess return (compared with the less risky alternative) that investors receive in return for accepting the risk.
Over long periods, bonds will have greater total return than money market investments. Numerous charts support the assertion that bond total returns are greater than money market returns. This can be violated when the yield curve is inverted, but under normal economic circumstances, the individual willing to lend his funds for long periods receives a premium for the risk taken.
Over long periods, money market returns will slightly exceed inflation. This is important to realize if your only goal is to keep pace with inflation. This would be the case if you have more than adequate money to live the life you want. Most individuals do not, which is why they must be willing to take on some risk.
On average, stocks are much riskier than bonds. Ibbotson’s data for 1926 through 2020 suggest that in any given year there is roughly a 30% chance that the broad-based stock market will be down rather than up.
Money markets are, for the most part, safe. Using money markets in a portfolio is a way to reduce the volatility of the overall portfolio value.
At some point, you will make investments that go down immediately after you buy.
You will sell investments that continue to go up after you are out. It is virtually impossible to pick a top.
You will stay in some holdings too long. This is similar to not knowing exactly when to sell. If things go well, you will find and buy investments that go up. You will almost inevitably own something that will reach a price peak, decline, and then you will decide to sell.
The value of the opportunities you miss will far exceed those you take. For example, if investors had only invested in Amazon when it first went public, before it became the large company it is today, then they would all be rich. The investment that they passed on has almost always made much more than the one they are in.
Someone, or some group of people, will always do better than you. This is easy to understand. Anyone who researches past performance can find an index, mutual fund, or individual investment that did better than what they owned.

Big Rocks of Life

One day an expert on the subject of time management was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration I’m sure those students will never forget. After I share it with you, you’ll never forget it either.

As this man stood in front of the group of high-powered overachievers he said, “Okay, time for a quiz.” Then he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed mason jar and set it on a table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?” Everyone in the class said, “Yes.”

Then he said, “Really?” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. Then he smiled and asked the group once more, “Is the jar full?”

By this time the class was onto him. “Probably not,” one of them answered.

“Good!” he replied. And he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, “Is this jar full?” “No!” the class shouted.

Once again he said, “Good!” Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”

One eager beaver raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit some more things into it!”

“No,” the speaker replied, “that’s not the point. The truth that this illustration teaches us is: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

What are the big rocks in your life? A project that you want to accomplish? Time with your loved ones? Your faith, your education, your finances? A cause? Teaching or mentoring others? Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you’ll never get them in at all.

Our thoughts…

One of the biggest rocks in life is personal financial planning. If this aspect of your life is disorganized and chaotic, how can the rest of your life feel orderly and healthy? Start with the big rocks… the rest will follow.