The cornerstone of the Firm's investment philosophy is a commitment to protect and enhance our clients' capital over time in a conservative and prudent manner. Our objective is to achieve these results without taking excessive risk. We are especially anxious to preserve capital in those periods when the markets are declining.

This policy revolves around our ability to act as asset managers in the broadest sense. Volatility in the global economy has made it necessary to adhere to a discipline of actively managing funds in varying degrees of stocks, bonds or money market instruments in order to achieve the optimum return at any given point in the economic cycle. Dramatic changes in the investment business in recent years have caused better money managers to focus continually on asset allocation (the ratio of equities, cash, fixed income) as well as specific security selection. In fact, recent analytical studies indicate that asset allocation has become as important as selectivity in achieving superior investment results. We constantly review the asset allocation of our clients' accounts and make periodic shifts to reflect changing opportunity and risk in the various markets.