Our five Guardian portfolios are designed to protect income paying portfolios by smoothing longer term returns which will allow Financial Advisers to plan with greater accuracy and confi dence. Our portfolios are designed to assist in an efficient, reliable, low-cost decumulation pension strategy.

Decumulation investors could hold a combination of cash to support their income requirements and a Guardian Portfolio that focuses on providing consistent returns and capital protection. We do not use structured products that introduce additional risk and cost. Instead, we prefer the use of low-cost index-tracker funds as our underlying assets.

The predicament faced by income seeking investors is downside sequence of returns risk and the potential impact this has on future capital values and income withdrawals.

A very real danger to long-term income investors is the potential damaging impact of early falls in a pension fund value causing a reduction in long-term capital values, also known as sequence of returns risk. This impact is magnified when income withdrawals are needed creating a ‘double’ fall in values. Research into sequencing risk shows that an early fall in an investment creates a long-term impact on capital values which can aff ect the long-term viability of income withdrawals. Also during decumulation, the process of selling the underlying assets for income when the market is falling has a greater impact on the reduction of the underlying capital.

The Crossing Point Guardian portfolios seek to minimise sequence of returns risk, volatility and maximum drawdowns by smoothing long-term returns through the combined use of asset allocation and trend-following tactical trading. This double layer of volatility control allows fi nancial advisers to plan ahead with greater accuracy over future returns.

Crossing Point Guardian strategies are designed to protect capital values of income paying portfolios allowing retired investors to take an income from a portfolio with greater confidence.