About The Firm
Thompson & Thompson Investment Advisors, Inc. was formed in late 2019 primarily to provide comprehensive investment management and retirement income planning services to investors in retirement or saving for retirement. At the beginning of 2022 the firm expanded its services to include focused investment management for any investor who wanted part of his or her investment portfolio actively managed with a goal to outperform the market.
Focused Investment Management
At the end of March 2020, we opened an account for the T&T Multicap Blended Model Portfolio. At the beginning of 2021 we opened another account for the T&T Multicap Income Model Portfolio. We use these portfolios as the basis for our clients’ individual stock portfolios. Due to the excellent investment results of these model portfolios, at the beginning of 2022 we began offering focused investment manage for clients who’s investment goal is outperforming the stock market, more particularly the S&P 500 Index, and who are not interested in retirement income planning services.
Comprehensive Investment Management with Retirement Income Planning
Should advisors understand the mathematics behind the models they use and account for realistic long-term market return expectations when managing investments and planning for retirement? Do fees matter?
An affirmative answer to these questions may seem clear, but many advisors create retirement plans based on unrealistic assumptions using sophisticated statistical software they don’t understand, and charge clients around 1% of their assets every year. Retirement plans produced with overly optimistic return assumptions are dangerously misleading and can result in under-saving before retirement and over-spending in the early years of retirement, which creates a much greater risk of running out of money in retirement. Conversely, the use of overly pessimistic return assumptions can result in over-saving and under-spending in the early retirement years, which results in a much lower standard of living for the retiree than necessary. And a 1% advisor fee can create an unreasonable drag on a retiree’s cashflow – after all, if a retiree is using a 4% withdrawal rate before deducting the fee, that's a quarter of the ordinary retiree's annual cash flow being paid to the advisor!
At Thompson & Thompson, we use carefully-developed, realistic return estimates based on our own propriety model and those of leading investment banks, which we update quarterly. These estimates enable us to make better asset allocation decisions in order to maximize the amount that our clients can expect to safely spend in retirement, and we do so at a reasonable cost. And for clients willing to have us invest part of their portfolio in individual stocks, we believe that we can further increase the amount that our clients will be able to safely spend in retirement.
Rick Thompson
CFO, Vice President & Investment Advisor
Rick provides investment advice and retirement planning for clients at any stage in their process of preparing for or enjoying retirement. Rick holds the Series 65 Investment Advisor license, and he is a member of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors and the XY Planning Network. Rick also does all things technological and mathematical at Thompson & Thompson. As the Chief Data Scientist, he is primarily responsible for the firm's proprietary stock market and retirement income models, which the firm uses to construct client portfolios with appropriate asset allocations, expected returns, and risk levels. He is a registered patent attorney with a degree in electrical engineering from Columbia University and a law degree from NYU. Rick, however, spent much of his professional life not as a lawyer, but as a teacher of calculus and statistics, which allowed him to share his love of mathematical modeling with a generation of students.
Davis Thompson
CEO, President &
Investment Advisor
At Thompson & Thompson, Davis advises pre-retirement and retired clients. As the Chief Investment Officer, he is primarily responsible for designing the firm's general investment strategies. Davis holds the Series 65 Investment Advisor license. His education includes an M.A. and an M.Phil. in economics from Yale as well as degrees in law from UCLA and taxation from USC. Davis was the head of the corporate and tax practice group at Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo for nearly three decades where he also advised on estate and succession planning. He was co-chair of the firm's investment committee which made decisions on investment policy for the firm's retirement plan, as well as on the retention and replacement of outside advisors. An active investor with and former director of the Pasadena Angels, he has long been involved in the founding, financing, and running of a number of businesses, including his own law firm.