The biggest barrier to personal investing is its complexity. With so many different types of investments, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, investors must put their trust in financial advisors. Unfortunately, that does not always yield the best results. While most financial advisors wish nothing but the best for their clients, they may not understand precisely what those clients want and need.

That's why Robert Clarfeld, CEO and founder of Clarfeld Wealth Strategists and Financial Confidantes™, starts out by getting to know his new clients in detail. “We take a lot of time to completely understand our client's financial planning needs. So before we will invest a dollar, we spend time going over their objectives, their risk tolerance, what their retirement would look like,” he said. “In other words, we spend a great deal of effort making sure that what we put together makes sense for our client, and then we spend a lot of time educating a client on different asset classes, what their expectations should be, before we invest.”

Understanding the client's goals is extremely important for designing the right investment package.  Each client may have a different set of requirements for return on investment, risk tolerance, investment timelines, and a host of other issues. If client and advisor don't share a level of mutual understanding, then what an advisor considers a successful investment might be a huge disappointment for his client. “We are acting as our clients' financial confidantes, so we explore different investment vehicles based on our extensive knowledge of their needs and objectives,” Clarfeld explained.

Often Clarfeld turns to ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds) for his clients' portfolios. ETFs share the best qualities of both individual securities and mutual funds, which makes them an excellent choice for many investors. “Very often they are the best vehicle,” Clarfeld said. “We don't look for specific trends when incorporating ETFs. We'll ask ourselves what is the best vehicle to implement a specific strategy, and more and more, ETFs are moving to the forefront.”

Clarfeld, who has been ranked by Barron’s as the top independent investment advisor in New York for the past four years, believes that risk management is a key component in any investment decision. “For us, an asset class is not good or bad; an asset class either provides a return commensurate to the risk that's being assumed or it doesn't,” he said. “So we take a look at what we think are better values in the marketplace, and those are the asset classes we go into.” Once Clarfeld has selected the optimal mix of asset classes for his client, he turns to a best-of-breed investment manager to choose the best securities within that class and build a customized portfolio for that client.

For more information, please visit: www.clarfeld.com