Embracing the fiduciary standard as a core belief, behavior, and service model means that you must ALWAYS act in the absolute benefit of your client regardless of the compensation and without conflict of interest. Under this assignment, one can make specific and exact recommendations and in addition, can act on behalf of their client. Being suitable simply means that you only need to prove that your recommendations were appropriate for clients in the similar age, income, and risk tolerances. There is a clear and distinct difference between the two. We are required to act in a fiduciary capacity for our university clients.

A buy and hold philosophy is ideal when the market conditions are bullish, yet it is disastrous when the market conditions are in a state of volatility and have bearish conditions. Dynamic Asset Allocation & Active Management are the state of constant surveillance and due diligence in an attempt to understand and account for risks to a client and their portfolio.

Active Management does not translate into high costs and constant trading of investments. It means that the market is under constant and consistent measurement to identify, quantify, and understand the risks present at all times. Summit's systems are designed to be pro-active in our assessment of risk and communication with our clients.

Under this philosophy, a proactive system will call to attention any issues, suspected conflicts of interest, or potential harm that a client could encounter. A reactive approach explains what happened and why it happened, but does not attempt to adjust or mitigate risk to the client. Summit's approach has always been proactive and will continue to be so.

The technical analysis is an approach to evaluating risk and reward potential using specific data that is oriented to price, volatility, and other technical points of interest. A fundamental analysis is designed to evaluate the merits of an investment on the strength of its management, its past performance, and other related primary points of interest. Summit’s approach is a combination of both types of analysis in an attempt to obtain the best of breed in each asset class.

Commission is a financial award that a professional receives for their advice or service up-front regardless of performance. A Fee for Service model is designed to award a professional as they perform. This model minimizes conflicts of interest and places the client and the professional in unison working toward the same desired outcome. Summit's university model is to provide a Fee for Service, as we believe it is the most transparent and mutually beneficial model for a win-win relationship.

This is the ability to get professional help in the management of your retirement accounts before you retire and allow the Fee for Service to be deducted directly from your account.

This approach allows you, the consumer, to try the service without the requirement of remaining obligated to it for any length of time. It provides the benefit of getting on-going professional help without the concerns of “making the right decision at the right time in my life." If you like it, you can continue with it, if you don’t…one click of the mouse and you can return everything to the way it was.