Our Difference

As a client, you have direct access to the investment analyst who selects your investments. An investment firm often provides a client access to a “client relations specialist” who may be amiable and cheerful but may not have deep knowledge and understanding of the investing process. Our clients can ask the decision maker any question they wish about any particular investment in their accounts and expect a quick, straight, thoughtful answer.

We hold ourselves to a fiduciary standard and to the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct. A fiduciary has the legal obligation to act in the best interest of the client at all times. The CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct is a highly detailed, global set of standards that govern the conduct of CFA Institute members. Not all financial services firms’ representatives are fiduciaries and they may have neither the legal obligation nor the desire to place the client’s interest above all. Our clients can be sure that the investment decisions we make on their behalf have their best interests in mind and that they will be treated fairly at every step of the investment process.  

Why Hire a CFA Charterholder? - Overview of the value of the CFA charter (PDF)

We communicate clearly and transparently in our dealings with our clients. To us, transparency means more than simply honesty or strict compliance to law and regulation. We aim to keep our business arrangements and communications as straightforward and no-nonsense as possible. Steven Ayers and Company earns revenue by charging management fees calculated as a percentage of assets under management at the end of each quarter. We do not sell investments to our clients, and we receive no commissions or fees for choosing one investment over another or for the frequency of trading within an account. We share in our clients’ success as account values rise, and vice-versa.

Our management’s history in the investment business provides perspective, experience and stability through benign and challenging environments. Long bull markets fill the ranks of investment professionals with many folks that lack personal experience managing through a bear market. Our president, Steven Ayers, has worked in the investment business since 1996 and received his CFA charter in 2000. He can tell you about his experience helping clients navigate the investment and personal challenges presented by the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath. He can also tell you about the lessons he learned during the Asian financial crisis from 1997-99 that he experienced firsthand as a young investment analyst working first in New York and later on the ground in Hong Kong - important lessons that helped inform our decision making when the 2008 crisis hit home. The type of experience Steve brings to the investment process may not be apparent every single day, but through investment cycles the difference decades of seasoning brings can be palpable.