A portfolio is judged as a whole.
Most investors hold their money in several places: a workplace plan, a brokerage account, cash. Each was chosen on its own terms. Advisory reads them together as one portfolio and gives you a written recommendation.
Scope
Advice on liquid investments, in the accounts you already have.
Advisory is advice. It is not management, and it is not a wealth-management service.
Accounts it can include
A 401(k), an HSA, individual brokerage accounts and other liquid accounts you choose to include. Accounts held at Stratum and accounts held elsewhere are read the same way. Stratum does not hold custody of them.
AccountsInvestments it covers
Cash, stocks, bonds, ETFs and funds inside those accounts. Recommendations work within the choices each account offers, such as the funds in a workplace plan, and do not address tax eligibility or contribution limits.
AssetsYou carry it out
The advisory relationship gives Stratum no authority over your accounts. You review each recommendation, decide, and carry out each change yourself.
Advice onlyWhat it leaves to specialists
Tax preparation, estate and legal planning, real estate management and insurance sales are outside Advisory. They can change how much risk you can carry, so we ask about them, and we involve your own specialist when they bear on the answer.
Not coveredPhysics
What the advice rests on.
Each principle is a property of how returns, risk and time behave.
One trajectory
You experience one path through time, not the average of several accounts. Wealth compounds along that path, and the volatility of the whole sets the growth you keep.
ErgodicityExposures add across accounts
The same company held in a workplace plan, a brokerage account and an employer grant is one position. Risk is measured on the sum, and concentration appears only when the accounts are combined.
AggregationDepth sets the cost
A drawdown of depth d requires a gain of d/(1 − d) to regain the prior peak. A 25% decline needs 33.3%, and 50% needs 100%. Money needed soon cannot wait for that recovery.
ConvexityTime decides what risk is affordable
The same investment suits money needed in two years differently from money needed in twenty. The allocation follows when the money is required.
HorizonMeasured, not forecast
The review reports what you own and what a decline of a given depth would do to your goal. It does not depend on a prediction of markets, sectors or rates.
MeasurementProcess
From what you hold to a plan you can act on.
Understand the goal
Financial independence, retirement or another milestone. What you spend, what you add, and when you will need the money.
Read the whole portfolio
Workplace accounts, brokerage accounts, cash and any employer stock, shown together: concentration, overlap and the effect of a severe decline on your goal.
Write the plan
Money to keep available, the long-term allocation, and the changes recommended, in order, set out in writing.
You implement it
You place the changes in your own accounts. The plan covers accounts outside Stratum as it covers accounts within it.
Independence
The recommendation does not depend on whether you use Stratum.
Advisory is a separate engagement from Investment Management.
It may recommend placing nothing with Stratum
The right answer can be to keep your workplace funds, hold more cash, or leave the portfolio as it is. If so, the plan says that.
OutcomeIt does not lead to an account
Advisory does not require a Stratum account. If you later want a portfolio managed for you, that is Investment Management, with its own suitability review.
SeparateRisk
Advice does not remove market risk.
Does Advisory require a Stratum account?
No. It is a separate engagement. It reads accounts held anywhere you choose to include.
Will Stratum act in my accounts?
No. The advisory relationship gives Stratum no authority over your accounts. You decide, and you carry out every change. A service in which Stratum made the investment decisions in your account would be Investment Management.
Can I still lose money following the plan?
Yes. Investments can lose value. A plan reflects the information you give us and a judgment about risk, and it cannot guarantee a result.
Does it cover taxes, estates or insurance?
No. These are outside the service. We ask about them where they affect how much investment risk is appropriate.
How is this different from Investment Management?
Management is Stratum making the investment decisions in an account you entrust to it. Advisory is a written recommendation across your accounts that you carry out yourself.
Start with a conversation.
Tell us what you hold and what you are trying to reach, and we will say whether Advisory fits.