The Firm
Armis Financial was founded due to the lack of transparency and value that the financial service industry currently provides to clients. After years of working at a large financial service firm as a financial advisor, I began to see flaws in my industry. Financial advisors are often taught to seek as many clients as possible, aggressively sell investment products, or push you towards their “fee-based” solutions. There is nothing wrong with selling an investment product if it’s truly in the client’s best interest. Practically every firm starts by gathering all your information and filling out a simple survey or questionnaire that gauges your “tolerance to risk.” Afterward, the firm pushes mutual funds or their own proprietary funds as the best “solution” for your investment goals.
There is a reason why most firms do it this way and why their Investment Policy Guidelines are similar— it is a marketing gimmick to get your money invested right away to either generate commission or get a kickback for services they recommend. Although everything I said might sound demeaning towards the financial service industry, I do believe most financial advisors provide value and have the client’s best interests in mind, but lack an efficient system or platform in place to prove it. Additionally, it is often hard to recommend an appropriate solution because the firm, client, and advisor’s interest might intertwine.
If any of the issues mentioned above sound familiar, feel free to reach out. Armis Financial offers comprehensive financial advice and asset management services to individuals, businesses, and families across the country from our home base in Austin, Texas. My mission is to partner up with clients and help them build a financial plan during their accumulation, preservation and transferring phases of life—all while being prudent, objective and tailored towards their goals.
What Makes Us Different
Intentional
As we mentioned before, most advisors are taught to seek as many clients as possible. But how can they find the time to provide value and adequately serve the client well? At Armis Financial, we believe that less is more. We intentionally work with select individuals that don’t want to be just another number. Our clients have to be comfortable with our philosophy, our fees and the value we provide. That is the only way we can have a tremendous impact on people’s lives. The result is a happy client which in turn makes us happy as well.
Fee-Only (When Winning)
Armis Financial is devoted to helping you succeed by providing personalized care while having the resources and knowledge of a large firm. “Fee-only” means you, and only you pay us. There is no incentive to the advice we recommend, nor do we get a commission for the trades we place. To keep clients’ interests and objectives at the forefront of the service we provide, we feel that the “fee-only” method is the only method that separates honest advice from conflicting advice. Oh, did we forget to mention that you only pay if you are winning? Learn more about what I mean by “When Winning” and about the difference between “fee-based” and “fee-only.”
Goal Oriented
Every individual has their own set of particular goals—whether its retirement, saving for kid’s education, buying a home, or just beating the benchmark. Before we make a recommendation, we always make sure the money you worked hard for is also working hard to meet your long-term or short-term goal—while aligning with your proper risk-profile and time-horizon.
Interactive Brokers
One of the other ways Armis Financial is different is by making the executive decision to partner with Interactive Brokers, LLC to become our custodian. Clients assets are not held at Armis Financial. We chose to work with IB for a variety of reasons:
- Financial Stability: During the Financial Crisis, IB actually received an upgrade from various rating agencies due to their sound financial status.
- Access and Execution: Complete access to all electronically traded markets worldwide while offering the one of the fastest trading execution of all online brokers.
- Less conflict of interest: After extensive due diligence, we chose IB platform because they offer no incentive to recommend any fund over the other. Most institutional custodian firms have their own proprietary fund that are highly incentivized. If your advisor recommends a fund that has the name of the firm in it, I would question the reason.
- Fees and Expenses: IB’s fee structure and commission is among the lowest of all the institutional brokerage firms.
- True Short Exposure: All though only recommended if deemed appropriate, IB has the ability to buy and sell alternative investments such as options, futures, volatility in an IRA account which provides our firm to have “true short exposure” in qualified accounts.
Here is a list of accolades that Interactive Brokers ave received in the past couple of years.
No Mutual Funds
Armis Financial offers a new kind of advice that doesn’t follow the outdated norm, and that is tailored to your values and goals. That advice is to stay away from mutual funds. They are not only an ineffective way to invest, but they also have an enormous amount of hidden costs that can range up to 1.5% on top of the expense ratio (1.25% Industry Average), then there is the fee that you pay the Advisor. You are paying these fees regardless of how your investment is doing. Armis Financial wants to lighten your load, not pile on. There are better ways to be fully diversified while not sacrificing returns and cutting your cost. Meaning more money in your pocket. Learn More about the inefficiencies and hidden cost of mutual funds and the difference of what saving 1% a year can do for your portfolio before it is too late.