Equity Strategies

In addition to customized portfolios, United Asset Strategies offers several primary equity strategies and alternate strategies designed to suit our clients' personal preferences and risk tolerances. These models include: Growth and Income, Value Plus®, Core Quality, Stable Dividend, Growth, TOPS, Momentum Plus®, ETF Portfolios, and Mutual Fund Portfolios.

Growth and Income

  • A diversified portfolio of 40-50 individual stocks and ETFs across various sectors
     
  • Recommended for clients seeking growth with income while minimizing risk
  • Designed to be less volatile than the markets and to outperform in falling markets, while being more defensive in nature
     
  • Security selection driven by both technical and fundamental analyses
     
  • Disciplined Sell Strategy including the use of stop orders to mitigate downside risk

Value Plus®

  • A diversified portfolio of roughly 25-30 individual stocks and ETFs across various sectors
     
  • Recommended for clients seeking a value-based equity strategy with a beta below that of the overall market
     
  • Designed to be less volatile than the markets and seeks to invest in mispriced stocks with attractive fundamentals
  • Security selection driven by applying a fair value screen across the investable universe
     
  • A sale will be initiated if the stock is no longer attractive from a fundamental standpoint or if the stock's valuation is no longer attractive based on a cash-flow based measure of fair value

Core Quality

  • A portfolio consisting of individual stocks supplemented by ETFs (sector, country, style, etc.)
     
  • Recommended for risk-averse clients and tax sensitive clients
     
  • The holdings of the portfolio are diversified across sectors and style (growth vs. value) which further reduces volatility and risk
     
  • We target strong return on invested capital, stable earnings growth, cash conversion and low leverage
     
  • We exit positions in securities when valuation becomes prohibitively expensive or when a deterioration in fundamentals put returns at risk.

Stable Dividend

  • A portfolio consisting of individual stocks supplemented by ETFs (sector, country, style, etc.)
     
  • Recommended for clients seeking a steady stream of income with a preference for the relative predictability of dividend payments vs. stock price appreciation
     
  • The holdings of the portfolio are diversified across many sectors to avoid the risk of concentration. This reduces volatility and minimizes risk
     
  • We target companies with a healthy fundamental outlook, as well as a track record of stable-to-growing dividends, strong balance sheets and comfortable payout ratios.
     
  • We exit positions in securities when valuation becomes unattractive, or when deterioration in those fundamentals puts the dividend at risk.

ESG

  • A diversified portfolio of roughly 25-30 individual stocks and ETFs across various sectors
     
  • Recommended for clients seeking an equity strategy driven by values-based investing
     
  • This tactical strategy seeks to both invest in companies that rank well on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues while also expected to generate attractive returns
     
  • Those stocks that meet the top 100 ESG criteria are considered for investment

Growth

  • A portfolio which invests in stocks that are not traditional growth stocks but have characteristics of intermediate-term outperformance and strong fundamentals
     
  • Recommended for clients seeking a growth-based equity strategy with a beta above that of the overall market
     
  • We do not have a mandate as to what the sector weightings should be, rather we allow the process to dictate sector allocation enabling us to overweight for the best opportunities

TOPS

  • A diversified portfolio of approximately 40 individual stocks and ETFs across various sectors
     
  • Recommended for clients seeking to take advantage of opportunities created by timely investing decisions from evolving trends and themes.
     
  • Will target up to 30% of the portfolio for thematic opportunities with the 70% base of stocks containing risk management overlays.
     
  • The use of price targets, to the upside, allows us to use trailing stop orders to capture additional upside

Momentum Plus®

  • Portfolio including 50% S&P 500 exposure via a position in SPY a SPDR ETF
     
  • Recommended for clients interested in enhancing their returns by investing in sectors and subsectors that show relative strength and momentum and are outperforming the market
     
  • Each sector will represent approximately 10% of the portfolio
     
  • At a minimum, the portfolios will have at least two positions, one of which would be cash. There will never be more than seven positions in the Momentum portfolio or ten positions in the Momentum Plus.
     
  • All positions, except SPY, will have a trailing protective Stop/Sell order. Therefore, in the event of a significant market decline, as much as 50% cash would be raised

 

Mutual Fund Portfolios

We offer three different models for mutual fund portfolios depending on our clients’ risk tolerances.

  • Conservative portfolios generally consist of 50% equities and 50% fixed income and are structured to achieve growth with stability.
     
  • Moderate portfolios generally consist of 70% equities and 30% fixed income and are meant to perform on par with the stock market while minimizing risk.
     
  • Aggressive portfolios generally consist of 100% equities and are designed to outperform the stock market.

Our disciplined selection process allows us to choose mutual funds which will best serve the interests of our clients. Although performance is a primary factor in deciding which funds to offer, our dynamic screening technique compels us to also look at the annual management and marketing fees charged by the fund to its investors and whether or not a fund has changed management recently. We favor funds which show positive capture ratios and returns on a consistent basis and funds with lower turnover, which minimizes taxation.

To maximize performance, we may consider funds with new or undiscovered managers as well as smaller funds if we believe they will add value to our clients’ portfolios. By applying a combination of top-down and bottom-up research, we build models that will help us select ideal funds for each portfolio. Additionally, we review and test the integrity of our funds on a quarterly basis; if a fund underperforms its peers, the fund is flagged for heightened review and will be replaced if underperformance continues. We also monitor fund performance and rebalance our portfolios based on valuations when necessary. Finally, all of our portfolios may contain hedges to protect against market decline, with the conservative portfolio usually maintaining a constant hedge.

ETF Portfolios

Our three risk based ETF models consist of long-term strategies designed to generate consistent risk-adjusted returns.

  • Conservative portfolios generally consist of 50% equities and 50% fixed income and are structured to achieve growth with stability.
     
  • Moderate portfolios are 70% equities and 30% fixed income.
     
  • Aggressive portfolios are 90% equities and 10% fixed income and are designed to generate returns that may outperform the stock market on a risk-adjusted basis.

We optimize both the equity and the fixed income portions of the portfolio using Mean Variation Optimization. We select ETFs trading on non-commission platforms, looking for those that have high liquidity and low operating costs. These ETFs will fall into one of the following categories: large cap, mid cap, small cap, international, emerging markets, and REITs. We also invest in bond ETFs, which can be long-term, intermediate, or short-term in duration