Investors Mosaic is a registered investment advisor firm registered with the Securities Exchange Commission.
The principal and sole owner of Investors Mosaic is Evan A. McCormick, President and CEO.
Advisory Services
Investors Mosaic’s (“Advisor”) principal service is providing fee-based wealth management, investment
management and financial planning advisory services for individuals and families.
Wealth Management:
The wealth management service offering is a holistic approach to managing one’s net worth through a coordinated
approach to financial planning and investment management. Also, we seek to serve as a “quarterback” between
your tax advisor and estate attorney to ensure that all important facets of protecting and growing your wealth are
considered. The goal of wealth management is multi-faceted: 1) Establish short, medium, and long-term personal
and financial goals and objectives; 2) Assess risk tolerance and capacity to achieve stated goals and objectives;
3) Develop and execute a comprehensive financial plan; 3) align financial resources with their personal values;
and 4) Optimize financial resources to maximize the probability of achieving stated goals.
The engagement starts with a discovery process that enables the Advisor to fully understand the client and their
goals, dreams, fears, and stresses in life, which will inform the decisions around financial planning and investment
management. The discovery process usually takes 1 – 3 meetings. We strive to make these discussions fun and
enlightening in order to engage the client and establish a sense of ownership of the plan.
Once the discovery process is complete, we begin the Financial Planning process. The financial plan is an iterative
process, and we focus on achieving the highest impact goals first, knowing that clients usually have an acute issue
they want addressed and their capacity to execute on the “To Do” list is limited. After the discovery meetings,
we develop a detailed report that entails a comprehensive analysis into a client’s current financial situation and
maps out a path towards achieving their defined goals. Elements of a typical financial plan are:
• Net Worth Analysis
• Investment Portfolio Review & Risk Tolerance Assessment
• Cash Flow & Budgeting
• Retirement Planning
• Education Funding Planning
• Debt Analysis and Paydown Options
• Insurance Needs and Coverage
• Risk Management
The financial planning process is collaborative as we focus on making sure the client “buys into” the plan – which
we believe will improve the chances that the client ultimately executes the plan. In our opinion, getting client
“buy-in” requires the client to be actively involved in the process, so there are multiple meetings and/or phone
calls before a plan is finalized. Once the financial plan is finalized, Investors Mosaic and the client begin
executing the plan. Investors Mosaic provides guidance and encouragement to the client through the entire
process, hoping to serve as a catalyst for action. We know that a comprehensive financial plan can be
overwhelming for a client, so we breakdown the “to-do list” into discrete and manageable tasks, and importantly,
only give the client one action item at a time. Once that action item is complete, we give them another action
item. While the client is executing their part of the financial plan, we simultaneously begin executing our to-do
list. Overall, we prioritize the action item list by importance and impact, striving to address any serious “gaps”
immediately.
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Once the financial plan is in place, we begin the investment management process. Our goal with investment
management is to optimize the client’s portfolio to maximize the probability of achieving their life goals, while
taking into consideration their personal situation, age, and risk tolerance and risk capacity. Importantly, our
investment management process seeks to coordinate and harmonize asset allocation across all investment
accounts, thereby maximizing the impact of the plan. A key tenant of our investment management philosophy
within the wealth management framework is a focus on passive investing, utilizing low-cost and broad-based
ETFs and mutual funds. Research has shown that proper asset allocation is more important than security selection,
so we have embraced a passive approach for wealth management clients.
However, when appropriate, we are also comfortable owning individual stocks for client portfolios. Utilizing our
research and knowledge from the active portfolio strategy, we have identified a list of best-of-breed companies
that we believe are long-term winners vs. the index and believe that it may be prudent for clients to have additional
exposure to these stocks. Owning individual stocks is also part of our tax-loss harvesting strategy and optimizing
a client’s international equity exposure.
Also, each client has a certain level of “path dependency” with their existing portfolio when they become clients,
so the process of migrating a portfolio to the optimal portfolio could take several quarters due to the need for
being “tax-aware” when rebalancing portfolios. Ultimately, the goal is to build a portfolio that is properly
diversified across asset classes and geographies and is long-term in nature to minimize trading costs and taxes.
We also provide guidance and encouragement to serve as a catalyst for our clients to make important changes to
their financial life. We recognize that clients are busy, and usually over-whelmed with life tasks, so we are
committed to helping them overcome the inertia that prevents many people from executing upon a well-developed
financial plan. Furthermore, we strive to be a source of level-headedness during market volatility as clients look
to us as a calm voice and steady hand during these worrisome times. In this situation, our goal is to keep clients
invested and focused on the long-term.
Even though we seek to serve as a quarterback for a client and their tax and estate attorney, and provide
suggestions on insurance need and coverage, Investors Mosaic
and its representatives are not attorneys,
accountants, or insurance specialists, and do not offer accounting or tax advice, nor do we prepare legal
documents. Clients should discuss suggestions with an attorney, tax advisor or insurance specialist before
implementation.
Stand-Alone Investment Management:
The Advisor offers stand-alone investment management services for clients that are only looking for guidance
and support on establishing and maintaining a portfolio that adheres to proper asset allocation, asset location, and
risk management. The process and execution for stand-alone investment management is the same as described
in the wealth management section. Investment management works best when a client allows us to manage, or at
least analysis, their entire investment portfolio so we take into consideration the holistic view of a client’s unique
situation in order to construct and manage the optimal portfolio.
Active Equity Management:
For legacy clients, Investors Mosaic manages one model equity portfolio, labeled “Growth”, on a discretionary
basis, according to the client’s objectives and investment suitability. Investors Mosaic confirms that all clients
understand the risk and return potential of the model portfolio and client’s financial situation, investment
objectives, time horizon, and risk tolerance are suitable for the investment strategy.
The Growth model utilizes fundamental analysis to determine stocks to include in the investment portfolio and
adhere to a well-defined investment process. First, we seek to identify “mega trends” that will create a financial
tailwind for companies and its stock price. Mega trends are defined as themes that will create long-term revenue
and earnings growth potential for companies in the industry. Often, mega trends consist of new, disruptive
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technology in existing industries. Examples of current mega trends the firm is following are: big data, cloud
computing, cyber security, human disintermediation, and post-COVID-19 structural changes.
Once we have identified mega trends, we attempt to identify the Best-of-Breed companies in the related industry.
Best-of-Breed companies tend to exhibit sustainable competitive advantages based on superior product
innovation, management team, and capital allocation. Based on these innate characteristics, we believe the stocks
of Best-of-Breed companies can outperform the broad market, enabling investors to generate alpha.
Once we have identified the Best-of-Breed company, we establish a rigid valuation framework that guides our
buy and sell decision-making process. Even though we are seeking to invest in the best companies in the world,
we’ll patiently wait for a stock to trade at a valuation we deem attractive. Conversely, we’ll sell positions when
we determine that the market is “pricing in” too much good news or business fundamentals deteriorate.
Specifically, we establish three price targets for all the stocks in the model portfolio: bull case, base case, and
bear case. These price targets are based upon our internally developed earnings expectations for the next 12
months. In general, we are buying a stock when it approaches the lower bound of our price targets and selling a
stock when it approaches the upper bound. Our rigid approach to valuation is aimed at removing emotion from
the decision-making process, which we believe helps us make better investment decisions.
We utilize several key information sources for our stock research, including The Wall Street Journal; SEC filings
such as 10-K’s, 10-Q’s, proxy statements, and S-1 filings; business magazines such as Forbes, Fortune, and
Business Week; and the Investor Relations materials from public companies. Furthermore, Investors Mosaic
utilizes less mainstream news sources such as Twitter, StockTwits, blogs, trade magazines, and lectures at Duke
University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to enhance our understanding of the world
economy, financial markets, and business and technology trends.
The Investors Mosaic “Growth” model maintains a relatively concentrated portfolio for our clients, typically 15
– 25 securities, that we have a high-degree of conviction in the long-term thesis. Additionally, our model portfolio
is constructed from a bottoms-up approach, meaning that our model portfolio will look very different than the
S&P 500. We are simply trying to find companies that we expect to grow earnings substantially over a multi-
year period, regardless of what industry it operates in. Investors Mosaic will use exchange-listed securities,
securities traded over-the counter, equity securities of foreign issuers, and options on securities to accomplish the
investment objectives.
Given the relatively concentrated nature of the portfolio, we maintain very strict risk management policies.
Specifically, no security can be more than 10% of the portfolio and no sector can be more than 35% of the
portfolio. We attempt to remain “fully invested” as we do not believe that any investor can accurately and
consistently time the stock market. We generally maintain a 2% - 10% cash position in the model portfolio
depending on the attractiveness of investment opportunities and market conditions, but our Investment Policy
allows the model portfolio to be as high as 20% cash if we deem the risk/return tradeoff to be extremely
unattractive.
Investors Mosaic will confirm the suitability of our investment strategy and model portfolio for new clients before
accepting funds. We determine suitability based on meetings and conversations with the client. If clients wish
to impose certain restrictions on investing in certain securities or types of securities, the Advisor will address
those restrictions with the client to have a clear understanding of the client’s requirements.
Investors Mosaic does not provide portfolio management services to wrap fee programs.
As of March 31, 2024, Investors Mosaic had 27 clients and $119.5M of client assets under management.
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