Cash & Investment Management
At Great Point Wealth Advisors, we coordinate cash and investment management as part of a broader wealth plan for individuals and families in Greater Boston and beyond. We align portfolios, liquidity, taxes, and long-term goals across emerging, independent, and generational wealth. Our fee-only, evidence-based approach emphasizes broad diversification, cost awareness, and tax efficiency.
Schedule a Conversation about your cash and investment management needs.
What clients can expect from this relationship
Great Point connects investment decisions to the rest of your financial life. We begin with your goals, constraints, liquidity needs, and tax considerations; explain what we recommend and why; and continue reviewing the strategy as circumstances change. The process is designed to make responsibilities and next steps clear.
Anchored in the CFP Board's planning process
Our advice follows the Seven Steps of Financial Planning established by the CFP Board. Applied to your investment portfolio, that framework looks like this:
- Understand your circumstances. We inventory your assets, liabilities, cash flows, account types, cost basis, existing positions, restricted stock, tax situation, and outside holdings before recommending a single trade.
- Identify and select goals. Retirement income, education funding, a home purchase, business sale proceeds, or a legacy for the next generation each imply different time horizons and risk budgets.
- Analyze your current course of action. We stress-test your existing allocation, concentration risk, embedded gains, fees, and tax exposure against the goals you've prioritized.
- Develop recommendations. We build a written Investment Policy that spells out target allocation, permitted ranges, rebalancing rules, and the account-by-account tax location of each asset class.
- Present the plan. You see exactly what will change, why, the tax cost of getting there, and the expected all-in fee before we execute anything.
- Implement the recommendations. We handle account opening and transfers at your custodian, reconcile positions, update cost basis, and stage trades to manage tax impact.
- Monitor and update. Portfolios are reviewed on a regular cadence, rebalanced as markets move, and revisited whenever life or the tax code changes.
For the full planning framework, see our Retirement and Financial Planning page.
Our investment philosophy
Long-term, evidence-based, and globally diversified. Capital markets reward patient, diversified capital. We take a long-term view, keep transactions to a minimum, and build portfolios that own thousands of securities across U.S. large, mid, and small companies, developed international markets, emerging markets, and a high-quality fixed income sleeve calibrated to each client's income and stability needs.
Independence and open architecture. As an independent Registered Investment Advisor, we are not compensated by any fund company, insurance carrier, or custodian. We select from an unlimited universe of investments and maintain relationships with a curated group of institutional managers — including Avantis Investments, BlackRock, Dimensional Fund Advisors, Goldman Sachs, State Street Global Advisors, The Vanguard Group, Wellington Management, and WisdomTree Investments.
Cost discipline. Every basis point of expense is a headwind to compounding. We favor low-cost ETFs and institutional share classes, negotiate custodial trading costs down whenever possible, and monitor the weighted-average expense ratio of every portfolio we manage. A representative diversified portfolio built from our current lineup carries an underlying fund expense that is a small fraction of the industry average for actively managed mutual funds, in line with the low-cost investing research summarized by Morningstar and the Investment Company Institute.
Tax efficiency as a core discipline. After-tax return is the only return you get to spend. We manage taxes proactively at every stage:
- Asset location. Tax-inefficient assets (taxable bonds, high-turnover strategies) are held preferentially in IRAs and other tax-deferred accounts. Tax-efficient equity ETFs are held in taxable accounts. Municipal bond exposure is used where it delivers a better after-tax yield.
- ETF vehicle preference. ETFs generally distribute fewer taxable capital gains than comparable mutual funds, a structural advantage documented by Morningstar's tax-cost research.
- Tax-loss harvesting. In taxable accounts, we systematically capture losses to offset current and future gains while maintaining market exposure through carefully chosen replacement securities.
- Gain-budget rebalancing. We rebalance with an eye toward embedded gains, using dividends, new contributions, and distributions to bring drifting allocations back toward target without triggering unnecessary tax.
- Charitable and legacy strategies. Appreciated positions are earmarked for qualified charitable distributions, donor-advised fund contributions, or step-up at death when that produces a better family outcome than selling.
What a representative portfolio looks like
A typical diversified household portfolio managed by Great Point holds roughly a dozen to twenty low-cost, transparent ETFs spanning the global equity market and a high-quality income sleeve. A representative account might be allocated approximately as follows, with actual weights and vehicles calibrated to each client's plan:
| Sleeve | Typical range | Role in the portfolio |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Large Cap | 25% – 35% | Core exposure to the largest U.S. companies |
| U.S. Mid & Small Cap | 15% – 25% | Size and value factor tilt for long-horizon return |
| International Developed | 20% – 30% | Diversification across non-U.S. developed markets |
| Emerging Markets | 3% – 8% | Access to faster-growing economies at attractive valuations |
| Bonds & Cash | 10% – 25% | Stability, income, and dry powder for rebalancing |
| Satellite / Alternatives | 0% – 3% | Selective, sized-to-lose exposures where appropriate |
Fixed income is built from short-duration Treasuries, high-grade corporate and multisector bond ETFs, municipal bonds for taxable accounts, and AAA-rated structured credit where it improves the risk-adjusted yield.
Cash management
Cash is treated as a deliberate allocation, not an afterthought. We help clients:
- Sweep operating cash into high-yielding money market funds or Treasury ETFs at the custodian
- Ladder Treasury bills for planned outflows (tax payments, tuition, home purchases, business capital calls)
- Consolidate held-away balances so total household liquidity is visible and productive
- Coordinate cash reserves with your emergency fund, insurance deductibles, and short-term goals
Ongoing oversight
Once implemented, your portfolio is monitored continuously and reviewed with you at the cadence you prefer — typically annually or semi-annually, with unlimited access to your advisor in between. Rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting, and cash management run in the background so your plan stays aligned with your life, not the news cycle.
Contact Us to discuss your cash, investment, and long-term planning priorities.
Great Point Wealth Advisors, LLC is a fee-only, independent investment adviser. Great Point Wealth Advisors, LLC is an Investment Adviser registered with the United States Securities & Exchange Commission. This page describes our general approach; every client portfolio is customized to the client's Investment Policy Statement. All investments involve risk, and past performance does not guarantee future results. For important disclosures, visit https://www.greatpointwealth.com/.