Our team takes a personalized approach to understanding your financial goals, risk tolerance, time horizon, and personal values. Through in-depth discussions, we gain insight into your unique circumstances to ensure your investment strategy aligns with your objectives. Based on this assessment, we carefully select a suitable benchmark for your broader portfolio, composed of broad-based market indexes. This benchmark serves as a reference point to measure your portfolio’s performance, providing transparency and a clear standard for evaluating investment success.
We construct portfolios rooted in the core principles of diversification, risk mitigation, cost efficiency, and tax optimization. Our process begins with forward-looking Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions (LTCMAs) provided by our trusted research partners, which project expected returns, risks, and correlations across asset classes. Using these assumptions, we optimize our diversified neutral benchmarks to maximize expected returns for each portfolio’s defined risk level. This disciplined approach ensures a balanced, efficient, and robust foundation tailored to your investment objectives while minimizing unnecessary costs and tax burdens.
The Walkner Condon Investment Committee may introduce discretionary tactical tilts to optimize portfolio weights for the following reasons:
These tilts are discretionary and tactical, meaning they are temporary adjustments to the long-term strategic allocation driven by the committee’s analysis of current market conditions. We select individual components (ETFs, Mutual Funds, Managed Accounts) to deploy the target strategy defined in previous steps.
Once the target strategy is defined, we meticulously select individual investment components to bring the portfolio to life. This includes a curated mix of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), equities, bonds, managed accounts, and/or private investment funds chosen for their alignment with the optimized strategy. Our selection process emphasizes cost efficiency, liquidity, and performance potential, ensuring each component contributes to the overall objectives of diversification, risk management, liquidity, and tax efficiency while adhering to the strategic and tactical guidelines established in earlier steps.
We recognize that each client’s financial situation is unique, often involving legacy holdings, tax considerations, or specific requirements such as ethical investing preferences or concentrated positions. Our team collaborates closely with you to tailor our strategies to your circumstances, carefully navigating constraints like capital gains taxes or integrating existing investments into the broader portfolio. This bespoke approach ensures that your portfolio not only reflects our rigorous investment process but also accommodates your personal needs and goals.
We periodically rebalance portfolios to ensure continued alignment with our target allocation and with the latest investment committee recommendations. On an ongoing basis we track and report investment performance relative to each portfolio’s assigned benchmark.
Last updated: July 1, 2026 by Walkner Condon Investment Committee
Risk
Although valuations have increased relative to historic averages, earnings continue to deliver. There has been some positive momentum in peace talks over the Strait of Hormuz, easing geopolitical uncertainty that was seen for most of the first half of 2026.
Value vs. Growth
The Mag 7 underperformed the rest of the S&P throughout the first half of 2026. We believe growth stock valuations appear to be reasonably valued, shifting our views to favor growth.
Regions
We trimmed some gains in international equities, but still maintain a preference for international equities relative to most global benchmarks. Even though the dollar has been slightly up in 2026, we continue to see a longer-term trend of dollar weakness.
Credit
Corporate profits remain strong and defaults are low. We think fixed income beyond Treasuries is attractive, in the U.S. and globally. Corporate bonds, high yield bonds, and private credit in some cases can provide additional yield when properly allocated in portfolios.
Duration
De-escalation in the Middle East has caused the price of oil to normalize, while most global central banks appear to be in a position to hold rates steady. We anticipate a relatively stable interest rate environment in 2026 due to cooling energy prices and a potential tailwind for the global economy for the year ahead. One item to continue to keep an eye on is the Fed keeping the door open for a potential rate hike in the U.S.Â
Stocks vs. Bonds
Companies continue to show strong profits and balance sheets, along with a sizable amount of spending to come on data center and infrastructure projects. Bonds continue to provide ballast in portfolios and offer decent yield along the way.
Equity Deviation Range
We typically maintain an equity allocation that is within +/- 5% of our strategic target. This allows for tactical adjustments in response to market opportunities or risks while ensuring that portfolios remain aligned with their long-term objectives.
Style and Factor Tilts
Within our equity allocations, we may take a more nuanced approach by incorporating specific style and factor tilts. This involves overweighting or underweighting certain investment styles (e.g., value, growth) or factors (e.g., momentum, quality) based on our market outlook and research.
Dynamic Fixed Income Allocation
We believe that fixed income allocations should not be static. Instead, we actively manage duration and credit exposure in response to changing market conditions. This may involve adjusting the maturity profile of our bond holdings or shifting between different sectors of the fixed income market.
Cost-Efficient Investments
While we prioritize cost-efficient investments across all asset classes and generally favor index funds, we try to allocate assets in a diversified manner and seek to maximize returns relative to risk.
Trading Frequency
We trade taxable portfolios with an eye on taxation, seeking to minimize capital gains. For all accounts, we design tolerance bands and rebalance portfolios when appropriate on a regular basis. Fund substitutions are made periodically after model changes are made.
The Investment Committee oversees and provides strategic guidance to ensure investment decisions align with Walkner Condon’s core principles and long-term asset allocation goals. It plays a critical role in upholding disciplined, principle-based investment practices.
Clint Walkner
Managing Partner | Financial Advisor | Chief Compliance Officer
Syl Michelin, CFA
Partner | U.S. Expat Financial Advisor
Mitch DeWitt, CFP®, MBA
Partner | Financial Advisor
Andrew Klein
Financial Advisor
Stan Farmer, CFP®, JD
Partner | U.S. Expat Financial Advisor
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