Your vision comes first…
and it’s the only vision that matters
Thank you for taking a few minutes to visit our website. My name is Mark Lund, the firm’s founder.
I’m happy to share with you a little about our firm. We have a team of industry Financial Advisors and have an amazing Academic Advisory Board through our strategic alliance of investment advisors. This network allows us to coordinate financial, tax, legal and personal issues to help our client have peace of mind with their investments and retirement plans.
We believe that professionals working together makes a plan more effective.
I first started as an investment advisor over 25 years ago. I can trace how I got started in this business to a single commercial I saw on TV.
When I was in my early 20s, I wanted to go into hotel management. Since the best school for that field was UNLV, I moved to Las Vegas and took a great job at the Monte Carlo Hotel as a bellman to pay for college. I met many interesting people from all over the world, including celebrities. It was fun to visit with the guests that were checking in and hear their optimism about coming to Las Vegas. Many had some strategy they had heard about or a book they were reading to help them “win big;” however, it was a different story for those checking out of the hotel, if you know what I mean.
While living there, I realized I didn’t want to go into hotel management. I was putting all my tips in the bank but knew there had to be a better way to save money—that was always on my mind. That is why one day a particular TV commercial jumped out at me. It was about how to make your child a millionaire. I called the TV station, found out what company put the commercial out, tracked down their number, and scheduled an appointment to meet with them. While talking with them, I realized that they were doing what I wanted to do—helping people with their investments and retirement plans. With the encouragement of a good friend, I decided to follow my interest and give up the hotel business and pursue a career in wealth management.
To make the story short, I moved back to Utah where my family was, went back to college, married my sweetheart, and was hired on with The Principle Financial Group, a financial planning firm in 1999. At the end of my first year I receive the Rookie Of The Year Award. I thought that was so cool at the time. I still have that award on my bookshelf today. After two years there, I decided to leave and see if the grass was greener somewhere else (I would soon learn that all broker-dealers are basically the same, just different names).
When I left, I joined an independent broker-dealer by the name of Walnut Street Securities. Eventually that lead to a company by the name of Sammons Securities. I earned one of their highest honorary awards and status, called Chairmans Club. I received the Certified Retirement Financial Advisor designation, started courses with the American College of Financial Planning out of Denver, Colorado to work toward the Accredited Wealth Management Advisor designation, and became Master Certified with the H.S. Dent Foundation to become the exclusive advisor for the Salt Lake City territory.
From the very beginning, I was introduced to many money managers, investment strategists, investment firms, and so forth, who all said they had it figured out—that their strategy to invest would beat the market. Many of them made a lot of sense, but when what they thought would happen didn’t, I was always told something to the effect, “We were not able to foresee that terrorist attack or that credit crisis or this housing collapse. If these things wouldn’t have happened the way they did, we would have been just fine.” Well, hello! Isn’t the unknown the very nature of the future?
I felt like we were just being used and I saw us as victims, along with our clients. I knew there had to be a better way. I needed answers, my clients needed answers, and you need answers to some very important questions:
How can we be successful at investing and planning for retirement without using speculative methods? And, how can we have peace of mind with our investments?
The answers came in 2008. I made one of the best decisions of my life (I didn’t know it at the time). I went to an industry conference that was not sponsored by the industry broker-dealers. It was there that I was introduced to the other side of the industry. I began to learn the secrets that broker-dealers don’t want us to know.
It became evident that there was a better way to invest, a way that we can invest without speculation, that would give us peace of mind.
After the first day, I went back to my hotel room, called my wife and said to her, that I needed to leave the broker-dealer world and go out on my own.
Long story short, I left the broker-dealer world and founded Stonecreek Wealth Advisors as an independent Registered Investment Advisor. This way there would be absolutely no influence from the broker-dealers and we could focus purely on what’s best for the client. It was one of the best things I have ever done.
In 2010 I published my first book, The Effective Investor. I wrote this book as a way to share the answers I have been able to get to those important questions. The answers (insights) are what I refer to in my book as the Twenty Secrets To Be An Effective Investor.
The good news is you don’t need to use their speculative ways of investing to be a prosperous investor. This is one of the secrets in the investment industry that they don’t want you to know. With proper strategies and information, you can achieve a level of confidence and peace with your investments and retirement plans that you never knew was possible.
Over the years I have continued to try to share this information. You may have seen me on KUTV Channel 2. Some of the publications I have written articles for or have been quoted in include:
Our specialty is helping people have peace of mind with their investments so they can enjoy retirement how they’ve always envisioned.
Over the last 25 years we have developed and refined a process we refer to as The Introduction To Prosperous Investing. It’s a four step approach and includes the 20 must answer questions for peace of mind in retirement. Few people can successfully answer “yes” to all, or even a majority of these questions the first time they see or hear them. Our goal is to get you to the point where you can answer “yes” to every one of them. The answers to these questions are critical for your success.
This approach ensures we lay the groundwork for a prosperous investment strategy to meet your personal needs, your goals, and your vision, whatever that may be.
Prosperous investing and peace of mind is all about understanding your needs, your goals, and your vision so you can have the retirement you envision.
Your vision comes first and it’s the only vision that matters!
Your vision is our number one priority.
Yes, we are a Fiduciary. In the investment industry there are two types of standards advisors are held to. They are either held to a Fiduciary Standard or a Suitability Standard. For example:
Fiduciary Standard:
“A fiduciary is a person or organization that acts on behalf of another person or persons, putting their client’s interests ahead of their own, with a duty to preserve good faith and trust. Being a fiduciary thus requires being bound both legally and ethically to act in the other’s best interests.”
Suitability Standard:
“Broker-dealers have to fulfill what is called a “suitability standard,” which is loosely defined as making recommendations that suit the interests of their client. Some broker-dealers feel this is unfair as it may affect their ability to sell investment vehicles that benefit their bottom line, but all a suitability obligation means is that the broker-dealer needs to believe that the decisions they make truly benefit their client.”
A close reading of these two definitions reveals that simply put, a Fiduciary Standard is a higher standard. Basically, it’s the view that the client’s interest comes first and it’s the only interest that matters.
We also follow the Uniform Prudent Investor Act (UPIA). UPIA is a legal document that was published by the American Law Institute in 1992, which outlines what it means to be a prudent fiduciary. The UPIA sets the standard to diversify investments which can be done by utilizing a concept called Modern Portfolio Theory.
UPIA states that the fiduciary’s role is to manage risk and expected return by developing and monitoring the trust portfolios. Modern Portfolio Theory is the idea that you should diversify, measure risk, and account for all costs. Not only are these your primary responsibilities as a fiduciary, but the great news is that there is an academic and scientific method, if applied appropriately, that can give you very good solutions and prudent reasons for making an investment decision.
We are a fee-only, investment advisory firm. We earn our income from annual management fees, the better you do the better we do. This fee appears directly on your statement and in some cases is tax deductible. With this compensation arrangement, you know that we are just as interested in your account growing as you are. By hiring us, we can provide you with investments that cost less than the investments you might choose on your own, through a bank, brokerage house, or other advisors.
In most cases, even after paying our fee, you’re saving money, almost as though you’re getting our professional services for free.
There are a few things you should know when it comes to compensation when comparing different advisors. There are technically only three types of advisors.
1. Commission-based
2. Fee-based
3. Fee-only
Commission-based advisors make their living selling commission-based products.
Fee-based advisors try to get both commissions and fees. They try to charge fees for a financial plan but in most cases they are selling commission products.
Both commission and fee-based advisors have their license held with what is called a broker-dealer. Also, they are typically not a fiduciary.
Fee-only advisors work on fees only, and earn no commissions at all. They derive their income from client-management fees, like an attorney or a CPA. They don’t get any kickbacks for using any particular product or company.
We describe our philosophy as evidence-based. To your left you will see a video of a webinar explaining evidence-based investing.
Our investment philosophy is based on more than eighty years of market data. The concepts are based on Nobel Prize winning financial, economic & academic theory, from the likes of Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins University, University of Chicago and MIT.
Louis Bachelier, in his thesis, “The Theory of Speculation,” set forth this revolutionary conclusion that,
“There is no useful information contained in historical price movements of securities.”
In Eugene Fama’s book, Random Walks in Stock Market Prices, he said,
“In [a free] market at any point in time the actual price of a security will be a good estimate of its intrinsic value.”
What this means is that all the knowable and predictable information is already factored into the price of a security. It is only new news and information that changes the price of a security.
It’s the evidence that matters.
With so much conflicting information out there, the key to evidence-based investing lies in adhering strictly to academic standards of research. It’s the easiest way to separate truth from fiction.
Can I share a quick insider tip? When it comes to performance, make sure that the portfolios you are looking at have been audited by a third-party professional like Global Investment performance (GIPS). Many money managers, financial advisors, stockbrokers, and planners claim consistent, superior performance, but do not provide independently-validated evidence of that performance from a firm like GIPS. It’s always in your best interest to ask for a GIPS audit report. For more information about GIPS, visit their website at gipsstandards.org.[1]
We have GIPS audited returns.
I am the oldest of four and grew up in Sandy, Utah. I was blessed with a great family who taught me values, honesty, and hard work. I have many great memories spending time with my three siblings, building forts, camping, and playing basketball. When I was in high school, I had a goal to make 100 free throws in a row. I would practice for hours. The best I ever got was 81 in a row and 97 out of 100, twice.
As a young man I had the opportunity to live in West Virginia for a couple of years. This was a great experience and taught me a lot about people and hard work.
When I first met my “future” wife she was heading off to Atlanta, Georgia. Our story is a little different than most. Usually you hear about a girl waiting for a guy. With us, it was me waiting for her. We wrote every week while she was gone. As soon as she returned home, we got engaged. We’ve been married now for over 26 years, and have been blessed with two kids, Trevor and Brook. Here is a picture of our family.
Trevor loves golf, and played on the Loan Peak High School golf team, and loves to hang out with his friends. I think the first words out of his mouth were, “Can I play with a friend?” He’s graduated now, but still loves golf.
Brook loves to snowboard and hang out with friends. She is a sweet girl and a joy to have in our home.
My wife is my best friend. I can’t say enough about her. She is the most honest person I have ever known. She is a great support and loving mother.
In my spare time I enjoy reading, fly fishing, mountain biking, riding my dirt bike up Tibble Fork Canyon and going on walks with my wife.
Now you know a little about me and my firm. I look forward to meeting you and learning more about you, your family, and how you envision retirement.
We are committed to helping you reach your investment and or retirement goals with peace of mind. I would love to be your trusted advisor. If you’re ready to begin, just complete the form below.
If you’re not ready yet, you can subscribe to my e-mail list, read my blog, or get my book. You can also click the link to learn more about
The Introduction To Prosperous Investing.
If you would like to speak with me directly, feel free to send me an email ([email protected]) or give me a call, 801-545-0696.
Thanks again for taking the time to visit our website.
Best Regards,
Mark Lund
Wealth Advisor
[1] investopedia.com/articles/07/gips.asp [2/13/18]
When you schedule your appointment, we will send you The Introduction To Prosperous Investing
To schedule your first appointment simply use the form below, or call us at 801-545-0696
We’re here to help you have peace of mind with your investments so you can enjoy retirement how you’ve always envisioned.
© 2024 Stonecreek Wealth Advisors, Inc. A fiduciary, fee-only, Registered Investment Advisory firm.