FAQ

Financial Guard is an online portfolio advisor that helps investors with investment allocation, fund selection, and financial education. We’re an SEC Registered Investment Advisor and act in a Fiduciary capacity, meaning that we’re legally obligated to be Professional, Unbiased & Transparent in our investment recommendations.

An investment advisory service can be helpful for people in a variety of financial situations because investment advisers provide investment advice and recommendations and continuous oversight of the investments. Consider whether you have the sufficient knowledge, experience, time and desire to manage your own investments. If you do not feel confident in your ability, desire or time to manage your own investments, finding an advisory service with an approach that is consistent with your investment objectives may be beneficial.

As an online investment adviser, Financial Guard provides discretionary investment advisory services to its clients using asset allocation model portfolios that it develops on the basis of Modern Portfolio Theory. Our approach is to design investment advice that is consistent with each client’s investment objective and risk tolerance. Through our process, we seek to identify a model portfolio – the asset classes in which to invest and the ideal mix of those asset classes – based on your financial and risk profile information that we obtain from you through an online questionnaire. Your responses to the questionnaire, including your preference for actively or passively managed investments, will be used to recommend a model portfolio of mutual funds and/or ETFs that invest in securities from various asset classes. The mutual funds and ETFs are selected and monitored based on various criteria, including their availability at the custodian where your account is custodied and a disciplined set of quantitative and qualitative criteria. Financial Guard’s Investment Committee is responsible for making all decisions regarding Financial Guard’s investment advisory services, including algorithms, asset allocation model portfolios and investment fund selections and recommendations.

Financial Guard is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) as an investment adviser pursuant to the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended (the “Advisers Act”). As such, Financial Guard and its investment advisory personnel must comply with the requirements of the Advisers Act and any rules promulgated under the Advisers Act in providing investment advisory services to all clients and is subject to the SEC’s oversight and supervision with respect to its investment advisory activities and services. Financial Guard’s Investment Committee, currently comprised of five members, is responsible for making all decisions regarding Financial Guard’s investment advisory services, including algorithms, asset allocation model portfolios and investment fund selections and recommendations. Please refer to Financial Guard’s Form ADV Part 2B Brochure Supplements available on the Financial Guard website at www.FinancialGuard.com or on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov for information relating to each member of the Investment Committee, including educational background and relevant experience.

Financial Guard’s annual investment advisory fee for providing services with respect to a client account is 0.50% based on the account assets (the “Advisory Fee”), although we may, in our sole discretion, agree to or set advisory fees that are different than the Advisory Fee (either lower or higher or flat fees that do not depend on the account assets), or entirely waive such Advisory Fee, depending on specific circumstances and/or nature of the relationship with a particular client. In addition, you will bear the fees and expenses of the mutual funds and/or ETFs held in your account that are reflected in each such fund’s net asset value per share (“NAV”). Mutual fund and ETF fees typically range from 0.01% to 1.10%, but may be higher or lower. You can find information about the fees and expenses of a fund by referring to such fund’s prospectus available at the custodian of your account.

If you deposit $10,000 into an account to be managed by us, we will deduct one fourth of the annual Advisory Fee from your account following the end of each calendar quarter. If your account balance was still $10,000 at the end of a calendar quarter and you were invested for the full calendar quarter, the Advisory Fee owed to us for that quarter would be $12.50. Please note, however, that the balance in your account may be higher or lower than the $10,000 you originally invested based on the investment performance of the funds in your account and, therefore, the quarterly Advisory Fee could also be lower or higher than $12.50 depending on the investment performance of your account.

Additionally, you may be subject to custodian costs and fees associated with the maintenance of your account. Information about the Advisory Fees and other costs and expenses that clients can expect to incur in connection with their accounts is included in Item 5 of Financial Guard’s Form ADV Disclosure Brochure available on our website at www.FinancialGuard.com.

Financial Guard’s Advisory Fee is asset-based and, therefore, does not incentivize us to select any particular mutual funds or ETFs for a client account. Additionally, Financial Guard maintains a Code of Ethics and other policies intended to mitigate or avoid potential conflicts of interest. For more information on the Code of Ethics and such other policies, please refer to Item 10 and Item 11 of Financial Guard’s Form ADV Disclosure Brochure available on our website at www.FinancialGuard.com.

Yes. Please see Item 11 of Financial Guard’s Form ADV Part 1. The matter disclosed in Item 11 involved Legg Mason, Inc., our parent company, and has nothing to do with Financial Guard or its employees. You may visit investor.gov/CRS for a free and simple search tool to research Financial Guard and its employees.

As an online investment adviser, Financial Guard provides investment advisory services only through its website at www.FinancialGuard.com. Your primary point of contact for any general or operational inquiries is the Financial Guard Customer Service Team, which can be reached by calling (614) 973-6999 or sending an email to [email protected], Monday-Friday from 8:30am to 5:30pm EST.

Depending on the representative you speak with, he or she may be registered as an Investment Adviser Representative of Financial Guard or another entity affiliated with Financial Guard and/or a Registered Representative of Franklin Distributors, LLC, an affiliate of Financial Guard that is registered with the SEC as a limited-purpose broker-dealer. If you have concerns about any representative you speak with, you may request to speak to a supervisor.

Once you’ve logged in and created a quick profile (this typically takes less than 2 minutes), you’ll need to tell us about your current investment holdings. Once your account has been established and funded at the operationally connected custodian we will begin trading your portfolio.

Financial Guard’s technology is simple enough for a High School student, but sophisticated enough for a PhD. We’re committed to delivering objective financial guidance to all of our customers. Our simple, five question profile tells us enough about you to make recommendations for your investments.

Financial Guard tailors its advice and recommendations by assessing a client’s ability to take risk and willingness to take risk solely through an online questionnaire that must be completed by the client as part of the onboarding process via the Website. Financial Guard asks each prospective client a series of objective financial profile questions and subjective risk tolerance questions to determine their risk profile. Once the risk profile is established, the system determines and recommends a model portfolio suitable for such client. Financial Guard does not take client tax considerations into any decision related to the allocation or investment recommendations.

Financial Guard tailors its advice and recommendations by assessing a client’s ability to take risk and willingness to take risk solely through an online questionnaire that must be completed by the client as part of the on-boarding process via the Website. Financial Guard asks each prospective client a series of objective financial profile questions and subjective risk tolerance questions to determine their risk profile. Once the risk profile is established, the system determines and recommends a model portfolio suitable for such client. In generating its advice and recommendations with respect to a specific client account, Financial Guard considers and takes into account only the client’s financial and risk profile information provided as part of the online questionnaire pertaining to such client’s account and does not consider any other client information to which Financial Guard may have access nor does it take into consideration such client’s tax situation, debt obligations or specific goals.

Investment reviews and recommendations are limited to mutual funds and ETFs and do not consider or review other types of investment products or services.

While some firms have the ability to provide comprehensive financial planning advice by gathering greater amount of information from their clients, robo advisers such as Financial Guard typically provide investment advice and recommendations on the basis of clients’ responses to a fairly brief online questionnaire that solicits very limited amount of information from a client. Therefore, robo advisers, including Financial Guard, frequently do not take into account a client’s tax situation, indebtedness, other investments or specific investment goals in formulating investment advice and recommendations to such client.

Limited Communication – Robo advisers such as Financial Guard communicate with clients primarily through their website or email. In many instances, clients have the ability to call a support line for technical issues or to clarify questions related to the site but do not have direct access to investment personnel.

Robo adviser clients are exposed to the risk of technology failures and issues, such as a lack of internet connectivity, inadequate or limited operation or stability of databases and internal transfers of data, failures of data connections to external custodians as well as other general risks inherent in machine-based operations.