How We Invest: Letting Markets Do the Work

Mayfair Retirement & Investment Perspectives

Ask most people why their portfolio is built the way it is, and the answer gets vague — a number from a questionnaire, a tip from a brother-in-law, a mix inherited from a prior advisor. You deserve a clearer answer than that. Here is ours, in plain English: we don't try to outguess the market. We position you so the growth of free markets does the work for you — patiently, over the long term — and we let the evidence, not the headlines, drive the plan.

Our approach on a single page.

Capture the market — don't try to beat it

It's tempting to believe the right manager, with the right insight, can consistently beat the market. The long-run evidence says otherwise — and it isn't close. In 2025, nearly eight in ten active U.S. large-cap funds failed to beat the S&P 500; stretch the horizon and it only gets harder — roughly nine in ten fall short over fifteen years, and about 93% over twenty.

Share of active U.S. large-cap funds that underperformed the S&P 500, by period (S&P SPIVA, year-end 2025).

So we don't try to be the rare exception. We own the market itself — broadly and globally — through low-cost index funds, generally ETFs, which tend to be cheaper and more tax-efficient than traditional mutual funds. You hold thousands of companies around the world, with a deliberate tilt toward the U.S. Where we lean at all, it's toward small, evidence-based factors like value and size — grounded in decades of research, not forecasts.

Keep what you earn

Two quiet forces decide how much of the market's return actually reaches you: fees and taxes. We keep costs low, because every dollar not lost to fees stays invested and keeps compounding for you. And we invest with tax efficiency in mind — holding the right assets in the right accounts, and planning withdrawals to keep your lifetime tax bill, not just this year's, as low as we reasonably can. Over a retirement, those two disciplines can matter as much as the market itself.

Total return, not yield-chasing

We invest for total return — growth and income together — rather than reaching for the highest dividend or yield. Chasing income usually means taking on more risk or more tax for no extra reward; a dollar of growth and a dollar of dividend spend exactly the same. We'd rather own a sensible, diversified portfolio and draw what you need from it than tilt the whole thing toward yield.

The safe bucket — measured in years, not percentages

Markets fall. That's a feature of investing, not a failure of it — serious declines have arrived roughly every five years throughout modern history. Our answer isn't to guess when the next one comes; it's to make sure it never forces your hand. We set aside several years of your spending in short-term, high-quality, liquid assets — your safe bucket — so an equity downturn can't reach the money you'll need soon. Everything beyond it stays invested to compound.

We size that bucket the way that actually answers the question you care about: how many years of spending do you want completely safe? Your annual draw times the years you choose becomes the safe bucket; everything else goes to equities. The stock/bond percentage is simply the byproduct — the years are the decision.

What we steer away from — and how we get there

Just as important as what we own is what we don't. We generally steer away from alternative investments, individual stocks and bonds, actively managed funds, market timing, municipal bonds, and preferred stocks — each adds cost, risk, or complexity without reliably earning its keep.

Discipline is most of the job — owning the right things, and skipping the rest.

When we take over a portfolio that already holds some of these — especially in a taxable account, where selling can trigger meaningful taxes — we don't force everything at once. We put a plan in place to move it toward this approach gradually, as taxes allow.

It's still your money

Finally, a word on freedom. If you'd like to own something outside this approach — a speculative stock, a private deal, some crypto — we're glad for you to do that in a separate, self-directed account you hold on your own. (Some folks call it their “cowboy account.”) We simply don't manage it or make recommendations on it, which keeps the core plan we build together clean and disciplined.

The result

A portfolio you can explain in a sentence: own the world's businesses cheaply and tax-efficiently, keep several years of spending completely safe, and let time do the heavy lifting — so you can spend with confidence through any market we've ever seen. If you'd like to talk through what this looks like for your own situation, we'd be glad to walk through it together. Think it over, and let us know what questions you have.