Our Partners
As independent financial advisors, we take seriously our legal and ethical fiduciary duty to always act in your best interests. This responsibility includes regularly evaluating potential partners to determine if they might offer services and solutions that can enhance the financial advice and support we provide.
CTA's independent business model ensures we have the autonomy and discretion to put you at the center of all investment strategies and business decisions. Just as we stand behind you to help you pursue your financial dreams, we have teams standing behind us and supporting our business. These firms also strengthen our relationship with you by providing the resources we need to better serve you. We think it’s important for you to know who these partners are and why we have chosen to work with them.
Our Broker-Dealer: Cetera Advisor Networks
Principals of CTA are affiliated with Cetera Advisor Networks, one of the premier broker-dealers in the industry. As our broker-dealer, they may be responsible for executing trades on your behalf. Like all broker-dealers, they must undergo regular auditing, and are required to meet specific net capital requirements to ensure it can meet its obligations to investors like you.
But their support for our relationship goes well beyond its function as trade executor. Our affiliation means that we are not held to a sales quota or tied to selling only proprietary products. We have the independence and freedom to recommend the financial solutions that best suit your needs, ensuring your objectives are what drive all decisions.
Their Parent Company: Cetera Financial Group
As the second largest independent financial advisor network in the nation by number of advisors and a leading provider of investment programs to financial institutions, Cetera Financial Group provides award-winning wealth management and advisory platforms, comprehensive broker-dealer and registered investment adviser services, and innovative technology to its family of broker-dealer firms nationwide.
Through those firms, Cetera Financial Group offers the stability of a large and well-capitalized broker-dealer and registered investment adviser, while serving independent and institutions-based financial advisors in a way that is customized to their individual needs. Cetera Financial Group is committed to helping advisors grow their businesses and strengthen their relationships with their investor clients. All of Cetera Financial Group’s broker-dealer firms are members of FINRA/SIPC.
Cetera's Custodian: Pershing
While Cetera Advisor Networks helps supervise and facilitate the trading for your investments, those assets are held by Pershing LLC.
Pershing LLC is a subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, the nation’s oldest continuously operating bank, and one of the world’s leading providers of securities services. Pershing custodies brokerage accounts for Cetera Advisor Networks, including brokerage accounts within IRAs, and provides related administrative services, including settlement of purchases, tax and account record keeping, monthly statements, confidentiality and data integration.
Like Cetera Advisor Networks, Pershing must meet certain net capital requirements, and is subject to regular audits, both internally and by independent firms, to ensure the appropriate handling, segregation and protection of investors’ assets.
Our Most Important Connection: With You
While the firms behind us play important roles in our day-to-day servicing of your needs, the most important relationship we have is undoubtedly with you. We work with these firms to make it easier for us to work for you. Anytime you would like more information about the above firms, please do not hesitate to ask. We want you to feel confident that you understand, to your satisfaction, how we work with and through these firms, why we have chosen to work with Cetera Advisor Networks, and the absolute priority both Cetera Advisor Networks and we place on our relationship with you.
After extensive due diligence, in 2003 we chose to partner with Loring Ward, a San Jose-based financial services firm that has been providing tools and solutions to independent financial advisors and their clients since 1990. Working with an institution like Loring Ward provides additional services, support, enhanced resources and a true team approach for the wealth advisory services we offer.
Most importantly, Loring Ward supports and empowers our investment philosophy which is founded on the idea that markets can create long-term wealth. Our shared approach is based on decades of investment data and analysis as well as extensive relationships with Nobel Laureates and leading academic institutions.
In addition to their investment experience and resources here is what our partnership with Loring Ward brings to you…
- Quarterly reports that clearly and concisely show how your money is invested along with detailed portfolio information.
- A full suite of analytical tools and technology to help us define, manage and monitor your investment goals.
- Secure 24/7 online access to your statements and reports.
- A written Investment Policy Statement to facilitate prudent, long-term investment strategies and help prevent spur-of-the-moment changes to your portfolio.
- Rebalancing to help keep your portfolio aligned with your goals, risk tolerance and time horizon.
Working with Loring Ward also means benefiting from the institutional expertise of Dimensional Fund Advisors, a money management firm widely acknowledged for its practical and innovative applications of academic financial research to investing. Based on an extensive analysis of a wide variety of strategies and investment providers, Loring Ward’s Investment Committee determined that Dimensional’s institutional asset class funds offered the best means for implementing portfolios.
Loring Ward’s partnership with Dimensional is based on a shared belief in the potential of companies around the world, powered by innovation, to create wealth for investors over the long term.
Loring Ward's Custodian: Charles Schwab
Loring Ward provides several custodian options for their advisors. We chose Charles Schwab as the custodian for our Loring Ward accounts.
The Charles Schwab Corporation provides a full range of brokerage, banking and financial advisory services through its operating subsidiaries. Its broker-dealer subsidiary, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (Member SIPC), offers investment services and products, including Schwab brokerage accounts. Its banking subsidiary, Charles Schwab Bank (member FDIC and an Equal Housing Lender), provides deposit and lending services and products. Access to Electronic Services may be limited or unavailable during periods of peak demand, market volatility, systems upgrade, maintenance, or for other reasons.
Like Pershing, Charles Schwab must meet certain net capital requirements, and is subject to regular audits, both internally and by independent firms, to ensure the appropriate handling, segregation and protection of investors’ assets.
We believe Loring Ward provides a distinctive combination of custom advisory strategies, a time-tested investment philosophy and service excellence, guided by passion and integrity.
Most importantly, partnership with Loring Ward allows us to focus on your long-term plan and helping you stay confidently on track to achieve your goals.