PFSGROUP STRATEGIC WEALTH BUILDERS

INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY

KEY PRINCIPLES

Our Investment Philosophy Key Principles:

PFS Group has been helping people pursue their varied financial objectives for over two decades. To maintain our position at the forefront of the financial services industry, we are constantly seeking ways to meet the diverse and expanding needs of our clients.

It has been our experience that if our philosophies differ, then the level of trust in our relationship will not be strong enough to weather the inevitable storms in the markets. Due to our rather unique investment philosophy, we are not an appropriate advisor for those who prefer a more aggressive trading approach (i.e. high portfolio turnover and short trade timeframes), or who prefer that we sell out of our key positions when they experience short-term reversals.

However, if you are an investor seeking an advisor whose investment philosophy is value-based, contrarian, and long-term, and globally aware, we offer a number of investment options that may be appropriate for you.

If you are not already doing so, you may want to listen to Jim Puplava (Puplava Securities, Inc.'s President and Founder) discuss his take on the markets and interview financial experts on his weekly webcast radio show: Financial Sense Newshour. You may also want to review Jim’s core position articles published on Financial Sense Online.

VALUE INVESTING

We are value investors. This means we seek stocks whose intrinsic value has not been appropriately recognized by the broad market. We seek to purchase undervalued stocks in those sectors that we feel are currently undervalued, or that have long-term value. (For example, we began investing in energy and precious metals stocks in 2001 and 2002—before their value was recognized by the broad market. Those investors, who were patient enough to wait a few years for those stocks to gain value, benefited from our early identification of these sectors.) This fundamental, value investment philosophy is widely attributed to security analysis developed by Benjamin Graham and demonstrated by Warren Buffett.
 
For example, purchases in the portfolio have been screened by our fundamental analyst for strong price-to-earnings ratios, attractive debt-to-asset profiles, positive-trending sales numbers, and other factors. In other words, we look for stocks with lower-than-average price-to-book or price-to-earnings ratios. For certain stocks, we also consider dividend yields as an important aspect of value
 
Because we are a value firm, once funds or transferred assets are received into a new account, we sell those stocks we feel are not providing good value. New stocks are purchased in the account only as good buying opportunities become available in those stocks we feel have strong intrinsic value and are at acceptable purchase prices. Thus, it often takes us several months to fully allocate any new money.

CONTRARIAN APPROACH

As a contrarian firm, we often look for buying opportunities in stocks or sectors that are currently “out of favor” with or “off the radar screen” of the broad market. We also seek for selling opportunities that we feel are too much on the radar screen of the broad market, or significantly overvalued or overbought (i.e. when we believe the market/sector stock may be approaching a peak).

LONG-TERM STRATEGIES

We tend to be intermediate to long-term investors; with a tendency to hold stocks for six months or longer (with some exceptions), often riding out short-term market reversals. During difficult market environments, we may pull the portfolio partially out of the market and into a core cash position, or we may choose to "ride out the storm," keeping some of our key holdings regardless of any depreciation of their price in the market.

GLOBAL/MACROECONOMIC AWARENESS

Jim Puplava’s constant consumption of market writings and information, as well as his interviews with those that produce them, keep him very much on top of coming/changing global/macro trends. As an advisor to our investors, we are very aware of global economic, political, and other pressures on the market, and do our best to position the portfolio to either take advantage of these pressures or protect the portfolio from them.

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“Despite the faddish storms that sweep through the financial industry from time to time, we endeavor to stay true to our course with sound advice for the wise investor.”

—Jim Puplava