Areas of Practice

Portfolio Management

TTP Investments, Inc. is a fee-based financial planning and wealth management firm, designed to help our clients build, manage, grow, and protect their assets through life’s transitions.  With nearly 20 years of individual experience, we know it is important to learn about our clients’ goals, attitudes, and needs.  We partner with our clients to identify and address issues in the areas of estate, retirement, tax, charitable giving, insurance and investment planning.  Through client interviews and ongoing communications, we establish and manage investment plans commensurate with each client’s risk profile. To assist with self-directed investments, we offer reviews of client objectives and make recommendations regarding investment selection and broker-dealer custodians.

Recognizing that people’s financial objectives differ, we strive to educate our clients about how to make sound, well-conceived financial decisions.  We believe that a broad array of investment objectives can be met by planning for and mitigating financial risk.  We realize that our clients’ financial needs change throughout life and that one investment method does not fit everyone’s situation.  To that end, our managed assets are divided into three risk profiles.

  • Conservative Risk Tolerance: Designed for our clients who need liquidity but seek rates of return greater than those provided at banks.  These investors generally need some income from their investment and want to minimize the risk to their principal. This strategy generally invests in US Treasury bonds and municipal bonds issued by the State of California and other local municipalities that have high investment grade credit ratings and can be converted to cash easily.  The portfolio is rounded out by holdings in blue chip dividend paying common stocks to help generate income.

  • Balanced Risk Tolerance: Geared toward our clients who are risk-adverse, retirees requiring monthly or annual income distributions, and those approaching retirement.  This portfolio is a hybrid of our Conservative and Growth portfolios.  It is a combination of equity holdings in the growth portfolio with value-oriented, dividend-paying domestic equities and tax-free or corporate bonds.  Assets can be held in retirement and brokerage accounts.  Participants have the option to reinvest income to enhance principal growth.  The strategy benchmark is a 60%/40% blended benchmark between the S&P500 Total Return Index and the iShares 7-10 Year U.S. Treasury Bond ETF.

  • Growth Risk Tolerance: Intended for our clients who are fairly risk tolerant, have several years before retirement or have other balanced investments to offset the added risk of this portfolio.  We analyze the momentum of the nine primary market sectors and allocate assets into those with the strongest momentum.  Periodically, this portfolio undergoes a meaningful rotation and is rebalanced as we see momentum change.

As a fee-only firm, our clients can rest assured that we are truly acting as their fiduciary and in their best interest. We don’t sell any proprietary products; thus, we are free of the conflicts of interest that can arise from those arrangements.  We custody our assets primarily with Fidelity Investments Institutional Wealth Services to harness access to capital markets and the operational excellence of one of the industry’s most prominent brokerage platforms.  The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) protects securities in accounts held by Fidelity Investments; however, SIPC insurance does not protect against loss from declines in market value.

Clients may track their investment activity online or with easy-to-read, informative client statements provided by Fidelity. Statements show snapshots, summaries, and detailed histories. Trade confirmations and security tax reports are available in electronic or hardcopy format.

Account performance is integrated with tax mitigation and provisioning services for clients electing to couple their tax and portfolio management needs.

To engage TTP Investments’ portfolio management services, each of our clients must sign a management agreement that we keep on file.  We provide every client with TTP Investments’ Form ADV Disclosure Brochure.

Financial Planning

One of TTP Investments most important functions as a financial planner is to educate our clients to make well-conceived sound financial decisions.  Each client’s financial objectives differ in terms of their individual circumstances, goals, attitudes, and needs. However unique, a broad array of objectives can be attained through financial risk mitigation or planning critical to all clients. Through advice, analysis, and implementation, clients are enabled to meet financial needs

For single or dual income families with minor children it is important to make (contingency) plans in the event of one or both spouse’s death or disability. Failing to plan may lead to forced liquidation of the family home, business, and retirement plan and unexpected estate and income taxes. Through planning, conflict can be avoided in the areas of custodial responsibilities and asset management on behalf of surviving minor children. TTP Investments recommends engaging competent tax, legal and financial planning services to resolve your specific objectives.

College Planning

The financial planning landscape has long been dominated by the singularly daunting challenge of funding one’s retirement.  With undergraduate degrees becoming more pedestrian and postgraduate degrees being increasingly desired in the professional workplace, many parents are faced with the challenge of funding not only their retirement but also their child(ren)’s potential college career.  Some of the many questions new parents face when thinking about college savings are:

  • We still have some time before our child(ren) begin college.  With our current budget we can’t afford to save for retirement and college at the same time; how should we prioritize these two hurdles?

  • What type of account should we look at setting up and how should we allocate our investments?

  • We don’t yet know how much our child(ren)’s education will cost; how can we determine how much to save each year?

When prioritizing college and retirement expenses, it is easy to get caught up in how much one should save in their IRA or college savings instrument and how to best split savings especially when starting out.  One way to approach this issue is by setting out to save only for retirement with a traditional IRA.  One of the lesser known facets of IRA’s is that retirement funds can be withdrawn penalty free (income tax still applies) to pay for higher education expenses.  This ensures a retirement nest egg while having contingent funds for education should they be needed.

There are a multitude of options available when considering which type of account to use when saving for a child’s college education.  One of the more popular options available is the 529 plan which allows for funds to grow tax free as long as they are used for a qualifying higher education expense.  The main drawback with such plans is that if they child chooses not to attend college, the funds are subject to a 10% penalty upon withdrawal.