James Bell • Langhorne, PA
Legacy Financial Services Group • FSC Securities Corporation

Jim Bell is a great believer in first understanding the big picture of things, whether that be his clients’ comprehensive financial planning and investment needs or understanding the long-term cyclical nature of the markets.

Bell is a financial advisor and Certified Financial Planner with Legacy Financial Services Group in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he manages approximately 150 client accounts and over $35 million in assets. Many of these clients are retirees or are on the cusp of retirement, and Bell is entirely focused on making sure they will have the income-producing assets they will need to provide for a comfortable lifestyle going forward.

He believes that the primary tool for doing so is an actively managed approach to clients’ overall portfolios, which demands a great appreciation for risk management and constant monitoring of the investment climate. Bell says, “Risk is an interesting thing. It changes as market conditions change, and it is incumbent on us as financial managers to be far more proactive than ever before. Investors will not stand for significant portfolio losses, not that they ever wanted to, but a lot of the faith in buy-and-hold investing has disappeared … as it should.”

He continues, “I think people are still afraid. They may know that the upside of the stock market could be quite high, but they’re still stung by what happened in 2008 and understand now that the down markets hurt badly. If you’re a pre-retiree or retiree, those down markets were so painful that it does make you leery of committing a lot of your own retirement money into those equity areas.

“I understand that they need adequate and healthy exposure to equities for growth, but how do you manage that without putting yourself at risk again for potentially another significant downturn? When you’re fully retired or you’re almost done working, to see your account drop by even 20% can be devastating to the longevity of the income you’re trying to produce.”

The answer for Bell can be found in a philosophy centering on active management far more than in his early days in the business. Bell says broadly of active management, “I see active management as not being satisfied with just how things have been done in the past. Active management is being creative – not just waiting for something to happen, but trying to think ahead to what strategies to use to be proactive. Many actively managed strategies are heavily quantitatively based, which helps to take emotion out of the equation, but not the creativity in putting the overall approach together.”

“Active management is being creative – not just waiting for something to happen, but trying to think ahead to what strategies to use to be proactive.”

Legacy Financial works with the broker-dealer FSC Securities Corporation, based out of Atlanta, Georgia. They provide Bell with a wide selection of investment options and strategies to employ on behalf of his clients.

Bell appreciates this freedom and says, “I have a diverse array of active management choices, as well as other more traditional strategies. I look at some investments that have a truly global asset-allocation perspective and others that have the ability to do many different things depending on market conditions. I might, at times, take a significant position in cash, or use alternative investments, trend-following strategies, MLPs for income generation, and other various asset classes, including equities.

“The key is proactivity and flexibility on behalf of clients and the willingness to put in the work on my part to monitor their portfolios and make adjustments as needed. Are we going to take our whole business and bet it on the fact that we think the market’s going to go up, or are we going to take our whole business and bet it on the fact that we think the market’s going to go down? That doesn’t make any sense to me or for my clients.”

Bell’s firm provides a very supportive and collaborative atmosphere, where “10 or 20 of us will get together on a regular basis and host presentations from wholesalers, representatives of various investment products, or even other portfolio managers. We listen to their best ideas and hear what is new out there, and then, as a group, we look very closely at what makes sense and what might be appropriate for our clients. It is very collaborative, and we challenge not only the providers but also ourselves.”

He also uses third-party money managers, but is especially demanding in their evaluation, saying, “Typically, clients pay a little bit more to have a third-party money manager because of that added layer of management. What value do they bring? Are they worth that extra money to the client in bringing another level of performance? Additional diversification? More risk management and security? We talk about alpha. What do investment managers and their approaches do to bring those extra results? If they can demonstrate that to our satisfaction, as several do, we will gladly add them to our overall active management arsenal.”

Bell is a little “old school” in two areas, which to his mind will never go out of style. He believes in delving deeply into a potential client’s background, lifestyle, and future goals, saying, “I use all of the appropriate and modern sophisticated tools to get at things like a client’s risk profile, but I want to go beyond that and truly understand my clients on a personal basis. The key is understanding their income needs going forward and developing an actively managed plan that fits their specific requirements.”

He also uses dollar-cost averaging, especially for “new money” being applied to equity strategies. Bell says, “Dollar-cost averaging has no emotion. We’re going to invest systematically on the same day of each month, or twice a month, or however we set up that plan regardless of what’s going on in the markets. We’re going to try to be in the right asset classes, but our timing of entry is not what’s important.

“The key factor is the time horizon relative to the client’s needs, and within that we are still going to actively manage. We’re not blindly putting money in and just waiting for things to happen. I believe a lot in quantitatively-based active strategies that can take the emotion out of investing, and I want to use the right blend of all of them … that is a positive thing that resonates with clients, especially as they see how it can work over time. My goal is to have clients come to conceptually see the big picture of long-term planning and an appreciation of active management within that, as I do.”