MARKET UPDATES: TIA's Current Market Review

TIA NEWS: SEC Rulemaking News & Notices

The Launch of the QE2 addresses the monetary side of the Government's response to the fiscal crisis that we are still feeling the effect of. Read Dr. Tiemann's current note to get a better understanding of what is going on with our money supply and interest rates.

In The Borrower of Last Resort, Dr. Tiemann began this series by explaining the Government's fiscal response—namely its approach to taxation and public spending. Read these related notes to understand the ways that the Obama Stimulus plan reflects a careful reading of history and established economic theory.

Click this link to access the note archive. Receive an advance copy of TIA's notes by clicking here.

Current Financial News: See Yahoo Finance . . . .

A TIA investment portfolio is not just a collection of stocks and bonds. It has a carefully planned structure, embodying established investment principles that are the results of more than half a century of top academic work

Investing with Tested Principles

Here are some of the main principles we follow --

• Principle 1. Diversification.

One of the most dangerous mistakes an investor can make is to stake too much on a small number of investments. They may work out well, but they can also be disastrous. That's why our first rule is diversification. If you aren't diversified, you're taking unnecessary risk, the kind of risk that the market doesn't reward investors for taking. So diversification is critical -- but it isn't enough by itself.

• Principle 2. Structure.

You may diversify across a hundred stocks, but if they have too much in common -- they're all high flyers, or all in similar industries -- you won't have the benefit of investing in the whole market. Your stocks may do better or worse than the market as a whole, but your portfolio is likely to be more risky than necessary. To build a well-structured portfolio, it's important to represent large stocks and small ones, growth stocks and value stocks, and a broad array of sectors. TIA tailors your portfolio structure to your individual needs, searching for the opportunities that best match your specific circumstances.

• Principle 3. Asset Allocation

Diversification and structure permit investors to make the most of the opportunities in the equity market. Investors also need to adjust the aggressiveness of their portfolios. It is one of an investor's most important decisions. Asset allocation -- the decision of how much of the portfolio to commit to equity, fixed income, international investments, and so forth -- is the proper area in which to make this adjustment.

Additionally, we only structure client relationships where our interests are aligned with those of our clients. We do not, for example, benefit (such as through fee structures creating sharing in profits but not losses) from taking excessive risk with any client's account. We work to reduce the all-in costs of our clients' accounts, including avoiding structuring in layers of management fees, watching over the direct trading costs, minimizing bid-ask spreads, and other things. We work to take risk out of the investment process where it does not directly result in return, including by never taking custody of any clients funds directly but rather only reserving trading authority for client assets, which remain accessible and visible to the client within their own custodian accounts.

Disproven Principles

Tiemann Investment Advisors intentionally does not utilize many techniques that are based upon principles long disproven by the academic research but which nevertheless are commonly used within the investment advisory industry. Notable among these are types of stock selection (called "stock picking") that are based upon current news, rumors, financial market hype (including statements made by TV commentators, known as "talking one's book") and recommendations from bankers or brokers (generally because they are holding inventories of such equities). TIA does not utilize or rely in any way upon the reports of equity analysts, whether positive or negative, and generally eschews the use of released news that, despite the appearance of timeliness, suffers from instant aging in an industry where traders react with lightening swiftness to factor all such "news" into market prices. These are a few of the more eggregious techniques that TIA defends its clients against but there are many others. Please contact us to learn more about our approach to protecting our client's from the self-serving methods widely utilized by our competition.

We know investment management, we know your portfolio and we know you.  This is the TIA difference.

Tiemann Investment Advisors, LLC is a Registered Investment Advisor, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Additional important information is available on TIA's Form ADV, Part II, which is available on request.