Portfolios built around your tax situation, not just your risk tolerance.
Anchored Wealth builds and manages investment portfolios for clients nationwide, with assets held at Charles Schwab. Portfolios are constructed around each client’s time horizon, income needs, and tax picture, and reviewed on an ongoing basis. Where it fits, we use direct indexing so that individual positions can be managed for tax purposes rather than only at the fund level.
What actually goes into the portfolio
Most investors have been handed a model. A number on a risk questionnaire produced a pie chart, and the pie chart is the plan.
We start earlier than that. Before allocation, we want to know what the money is for and when you will need it. A business owner two years from a sale has a different problem than a physician funding a thirty-year retirement, and those two people should not own the same portfolio simply because they scored alike on a form.
From there, portfolio management runs through institutional third-party programs that we select, monitor, and hold accountable. That structure is deliberate. It separates the discipline of managing money day to day from the responsibility of deciding whether a strategy still belongs in your plan — and the second job is ours.
Because we are independent, that selection is not constrained by a proprietary product shelf. If a strategy stops fitting, we change it.
Where the tax work happens
Two portfolios can hold nearly identical positions and deliver very different results after tax. That gap is where most of our attention goes.
Direct indexing
Rather than owning a single fund that tracks an index, you own the underlying positions directly. That distinction matters because losses can then be recognized at the individual position level instead of being netted away inside a fund. Those recognized losses can be applied against gains elsewhere in your financial life — including gains that have nothing to do with this portfolio.
Tax-loss harvesting
Markets move unevenly. In any given year some positions are down even when the index is up, and those positions can be harvested systematically rather than opportunistically.
Whether either approach helps you depends on your bracket, your realized gains, your holdings, and your state. Those are questions we work through with your CPA, or with one of ours if you do not have one.
Anchored Wealth Advisors does not provide tax or legal advice. Tax outcomes depend on your individual circumstances, and every strategy described here is implemented only in coordination with your tax professional.
How this connects to everything else
Investment management is one of six disciplines under this roof, and it is the one most often sold in isolation. We do not think it works well that way.
The tax strategy affects which account holds which position. A pending business sale changes what liquidity has to look like for the next twenty-four months. An insurance or estate structure changes what the portfolio needs to do and when. When those decisions are made by four people who do not talk to each other, the coordination cost lands on you.
Planning is included for our clients. There is no separate planning fee.
Investment management, answered.
- Is there a minimum?
- We work primarily with households between $1 million and $50 million in net worth. That is a description of who we usually serve, not a gate — we have clients below it, and the conversation costs you nothing either way.
- What does it cost?
- Our advisory fee is 1.00% annually on assets we manage. Financial planning is included at no additional charge. Where a recommendation involves a brokerage or insurance product, that product carries its own standard compensation, and we will tell you what it is before you decide.
- Who actually holds my money?
- Charles Schwab, as custodian. We never take custody of client assets. You can see your accounts directly through Schwab in addition to our reporting.
- What is direct indexing, and would it help me?
- Instead of owning a fund that holds an index, you own the individual positions inside it, which allows losses to be recognized position by position and applied against gains elsewhere. Whether it makes sense for you depends on your tax bracket, your realized gains, and your state — that is a conversation to have with your CPA in the room.
- Do I have to move everything at once?
- No. It is common to start with a portion, see how the relationship works, and move the rest when you are ready.
Start with a conversation about what you actually own.
The first meeting is an hour and costs nothing. You will leave it knowing what we would do differently and why, whether or not you become a client.