Financial Planning for Physicians: Achieve Your Goals

Posted on September 30, 2025 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

By: http://www.MarcinkoAssociates.com

Your medical practice. Your personal goals. Your financial plan. Our experienced confirmation guide.

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When you know exactly where you are today, have a vision of where you want to be tomorrow, and have trusted counsel at your side, you have already achieved so much success. Marcinko Associates works to keep you at that level of confidence every day. We use a comprehensive economic process to uncover what’s most important to you and then develop a financial strategy that gives you the highest probability of achieving your monetary goals.

We assess, plan, and opine for your success

To accurately see where you are today, chart a strategic path to your goals and help you make the most informed decisions to keep you on financial track, our key services for physicians and high net worth medical clients include:

  • Investment Portfolio Review
  • Fee, Charge and Cost Review
  • Comprehensive Financial Planning
  • Insurance Reviews
  • Estate Planning
  • Investment and Asset Management Second Opinions

We take a deep dive into your financial retirement plans

Physicians and dental employers now have options for how to design and deliver retirement benefits and we can help you make the best choice for your healthcare business. Our services for retirement plans include:

  • Fee, Charges & Fiduciary Review
  • Portfolio Analysis
  • Single Employer Retirement Plan Advisory
  • Retirement Plans Risk Analysis
  • Capital Funding and Financing
  • Business Planning and Practice Valuations
  • Career Development
  • and more!

We take a broad and balanced look at your financial life life

We coordinate our recommendations with your other advisors, including attorneys, accountants, insurance professionals and others, to ensure each decision is consistent with your goals and overall strategy. For example, through our partnerships we offer physician colleagues deeper expanded advisory services, like:

  • Estate, Gift, and Trust Planning
  • Tax Planning and Compliance
  • Medical or Dental Practice Worth
  • Business Succession Planning
  • Practice Exit Planning
  • Transaction Advisory Services
  • and more!

EDUCATION: Books

CONTACT US TODAY: Ann Miller RN MHA at: MarcinkoAdvisors@outlook.com

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Fiduciary Financial Colleagues Advising Medical Colleagues … in Turbulent Times!

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INVESTMENT POLICY STATEMENT CONSTRUCTION: For Physicians and Medical Professionals

Posted on July 30, 2025 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

THE ESSENTIAL DOCUMENT

By Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

SPONSOR: http://www.MarcinkoAssociates.com

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In order to create and monitor an investment portfolio for personal or institutional use, the physician executive, financial advisor, wealth manager, or healthcare institutional endowment fund manager, should ask three questions:

  1. How much do we have invested?
  2. How much did we make on our investments?
  3. How much risk did we take to get that rate of return?

Introduction to the IPS

Most doctors, and hospital endowment fund executives, know how much money they have invested.  If they don’t, they can add a few statements together to obtain a total. But, few can answers the questions above or actually know the rate of return achieved last year; or so far this year. Everyone can get this number by simply subtracting the ending balance from the beginning balance and dividing the difference.  But, few take the time to do it. Why? A typical response to the question is, “We’re doing fine.”

POOR DOCTORS: https://medicalexecutivepost.com/2025/07/29/why-too-many-physician-colleagues-dont-get-rich/

Now, ask how much risk is in the portfolio and help is needed [risk adjusted rate of return]. In fact, Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz, Ph.D. said, “If you take more risk, you deserve more return.” Using standard deviation, he referred to the “variability of returns;” in other words, how much the portfolio goes up and down, its volatility [Markowitz, H: Portfolio Selection. Journal of Finance, March, 1952].

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IPS Construction(1)Download

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EDUCATION: Books

SPEAKING: Dr. Marcinko will be speaking and lecturing, signing and opining, teaching and preaching, storming and performing at many locations throughout the USA this year! His tour of witty and serious pontifications may be scheduled on a planned or ad-hoc basis; for public or private meetings and gatherings; formally, informally, or over lunch or dinner. All medical societies, financial advisory firms or Broker-Dealers are encouraged to submit an RFP for speaking engagements: CONTACT: Ann Miller RN MHA at MarcinkoAdvisors@outlook.com -OR- http://www.MarcinkoAssociates.com

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Bitcoin, Stocks, Oil, Gold and Silver

Posted on July 12, 2025 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

By A.I.

SPONSOR: http://www.CertifiedMedicalPlanner.org

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  • Stocks: The major Wall Street stock indexes languished. The S&P pulled back from its record high to close the week just a bit lower, but the NASDAQ managed to post a gain across the week.
  • Crypto: Bitcoin hit a new high-water mark above $118,000. Next week, July 14th, Congress hosts “Crypto Week” to discuss regulating the industry in a growth-oriented manner.
  • Commodities: Silver rose to its highest level since 2011, and it’s been even hotter than gold. The metal is up ~27% this year. Oil, meanwhile, ticked higher on speculation that President Trump will place more sanctions on Russia early next week.

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INVESTMENT ADVISORY: Portfolio Second Opinions for Physician Colleagues

Posted on June 27, 2025 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO REVIEWS

By Dr David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

http://www.MarcinkoAssociates.com

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“FROM CHAOS-TO-CALM”

If you’re looking at this tab, chances are you are fed up with your financial brokerage accounts, thinking of finances, investing, retirement or all of the above.

And so, we can help

An investment portfolio second opinion, also called a “ portfolio review,” is an analysis of your financial holdings and associated strategies, allocations, fees and performance to determine whether the most effective instruments and methodologies are being utilized to reach your goals.

No Worries! You may have come to the right place.

E-Mail Ann Miller RN MHA CPHQ for an Initial Appointment: MarcinkoAdvisors@outlook.com

The purpose of this initial appointment is for you to ask a lot of questions to make sure you are comfortable with potentially working with us. It also helps if you are prepared to provide a verbal summary of your current situation.

Here are some questions to consider asking us during your first meeting:

1) Can you tell us about your financial qualifications, experience, education and training; if any?

2) Can you provide some information about your current financial advisory team?

3) On what type of investments do you typically purchase and own?

5) How much do pay your financial management firm?

6) How long have you been working with your current financial management firm?

8) What other services does your financial team provide?

9) What is your own investment philosophy?

A Fiduciary Opinion At Your Service

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MARCINKO ASSOCIATES: How our Second Investment Portfolio Opinions are Different?

Posted on June 13, 2025 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

SPONSOR: http://www.MarcinkoAssociates.com

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We make second investment portfolio opinions affordable

Approximately 1 million allopathic physicians, 150,000 dentists, 200,000 osteopaths, 15,000 podiatrists and 6 million nurses often find it difficult to get an unbiased and fiduciary second opinion on their retirement or brokerage accounts. By offering second opinions for a flat fee, the monetary barriers that prevented colleagues from receiving a second opinion in the past have been removed.

We make second investment portfolio opinions convenient

Here’s how we work: you book an initial appointment with us, answer a few preliminary questions and email us your portfolio information. We then provide a second opinion. It is then up to you to incorporate or not.

INVESTMENT ADVISORY: https://medicalexecutivepost.com/2025/05/04/investment-advisory-portfolio-second-opinions-for-physician-colleagues/

We make second investment portfolio opinions timely

Financial markets, jobs and colleague age change like the weather. It is not always okay to wait a week, year or more, to seek a professional second financial portfolio opinion. You need to receive an opinion now. That’s where we come in. We are standing by, ready to take your email [MarcinkoAdvisors@outlook.com] and schedule a free initial consultation within two or three days, or less.

ASSET ALLOCATION: https://medicalexecutivepost.com/2024/10/23/musings-on-a-famous-portfolio-asset-allocation-study-3/

We make second investment portfolio opinions accurate

Fiduciary and non-sales orientated second opinions have the power to change financial lives in the long term. We’ve seen it happen many times. What characterizes a good second opinion? Three things: the opinion must be individualized to your investment portfolio[s], informed and results-oriented. That’s the informed fiduciary approach we take. We are colleagues and look forward to working with you.

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT: https://medicalexecutivepost.com/2025/05/27/physicians-personal-portfolio-management/

CONTACT: Ann Miller RN MHA CPHQ: Email: MarcinkoAdvisors@outlook.com

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EDUCATION: Books

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FOURTH MARKET: Private Security Transactions

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

DEFINITIONS

By Staff Reporters

SPONSOR: http://www.CertifiedMedicalPlanner.org

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The Fourth Market?

The fourth market is defined as private transactions made directly between large medical investors, institutions such as banks, mutual funds, and insurance companies, without the use of a securities firm. In other words, fourth market trading is usually one institution swapping securities in its portfolio with another large institution.

From the stock broker’s viewpoint, there is one problem with the fourth market. Since no broker/dealer is involved, no registered representative is involved and there is no commission to be earned. These trades are reported on a system called Instinet.

This is advantageous to larger medical foundations or institutional investors.

What Is Instinet?

Instinet is a global financial securities service that operates an electronic securities order matching, trading, and information system which allows members, primarily institutional traders, and investors, to display bids and offer quotes for stocks, and conduct transactions with each other.

Instinet is an example of a dark pool of liquidity, a private exchange for trading securities that is not accessible by the investing public. The name implies a lack of transparency. and it facilitates block trading by institutional investors who do not wish to impact the markets with their large orders.

According to the SEC, there were 74 registered Alternative Trading Systems, or dark pools, as of February 2024.

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TRADITIONAL INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO DIVERSIFICATION MODEL: Routed by Larry Fink CEO of BlackRock?

Posted on April 3, 2025 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

BREAKING NEWS – MARKET VOLATILITY

By Staff Reporters

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US stocks nosedived on Thursday, with the Dow tumbling more than 1,200 points as President Trump’s surprisingly steep “Liberation Day” tariffs sent shock waves through markets worldwide. The tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite (IXIC) led the sell-off, plummeting over 4%. The S&P 500 (GSPC) dove 3.7%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) tumbled roughly 3%. [ongoing story].

So, does the traditional 60 stock / 40 bond strategy still work or do we need another portfolio model?

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The 60/40 strategy evolved out of American economist Harry Markowitz’s groundbreaking 1950s work on modern portfolio theory, which holds that investors should diversify their holdings with a mix of high-risk, high-return assets and low-risk, low-return assets based on their individual circumstances.

While a portfolio with a mix of 40% bonds and 60% equities may bring lower returns than all-stock holdings, the diversification generally brings lower variance in the returns—meaning more reliability—as long as there isn’t a strong correlation between stock and bond returns (ideally the correlation is negative, with bond returns rising while stock returns fall).

CORRELATION: https://medicalexecutivepost.com/2024/10/27/correlation-diversification-in-finance-and-investments/

For 60/40 to work, bonds must be less volatile than stocks and economic growth and inflation have to move up and down in tandem. Typically, the same economic growth that powers rallies in equities also pushes up inflation—and bond returns down. Conversely, in a recession stocks drop and inflation is low, pushing up bond prices.

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  • But, the traditional 60/40 portfolio may “no longer fully represent true diversification,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink writes in a new letter to investors.
  • Instead, the “future standard portfolio” may move toward 50/30/20 with stocks, bonds and private assets like real estate, infrastructure and private credit, Fink writes.
  • Here’s what experts say individual investors may want to consider before dabbling in private investments.

It may be time to rethink the traditional 60/40 investment portfolio, according to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. In a new letter to investors, Fink writes the traditional allocation comprised of 60% stocks and 40% bonds that dates back to the 1950s “may no longer fully represent true diversification.“

DI-WORSIFICATION: https://medicalexecutivepost.com/2024/04/09/what-is-financial-portfolio-di-worsification-2/

EDUCATION: Books

SPEAKING: Dr. Marcinko will be speaking and lecturing, signing and opining, teaching and preaching, storming and performing at many locations throughout the USA this year! His tour of witty and serious pontifications may be scheduled on a planned or ad-hoc basis; for public or private meetings and gatherings; formally, informally, or over lunch or dinner. All medical societies, financial advisory firms or Broker-Dealers are encouraged to submit a RFP for speaking engagements: MarcinkoAdvisors@outlook.com 

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STOCK POSITION SIZING: How to Construct Investment Portfolios That Protect You

Posted on November 18, 2024 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

By Vitaliy Katsenelson CFA
For a while in the value investing community the number of positions you held was akin to bragging on your manhood– the fewer positions you owned the more macho an investor you were. 

I remember meeting two investors at a value conference. At the time they had both had “walk on water” streaks of returns. One had a seven-stock portfolio, the other held three stocks. Sadly, the financial crisis humbled both – the three-stock guy suffered irreparable losses and went out of business (losing most of his clients’ money). The other, after living through a few incredibly difficult years and an investor exodus, is running a more diversified portfolio today.

Under-diversification is dangerous, because a few mistakes or a visit from Bad Luck may prove to be fatal to the portfolio.

On the other extreme, you have a mutual fund industry where it is common to see portfolios with hundreds of stocks (I am generalizing). There are many reasons for that. Mutual funds have an army of analysts who need to be kept busy; their voices need to be heard; and thus their stock picks need to find their way into the portfolio (there are a lot of internal politics in this portfolio). 

These portfolios are run against benchmarks; thus their construction starts to resemble Noah’s Ark, bringing on board a few animals (stocks) from each industry. Also, the size of the fund may limit its ability to buy large positions in small companies.

There are several problems with this approach. First, and this is the important one, it breeds indifference: If a 0.5% position doubles or gets halved, it will have little impact on the portfolio. The second problem is that it is difficult to maintain research on all these positions. Yes, a mutual fund will have an army of analysts following each industry, but the portfolio manager is the one making the final buy and sell decisions. Third, the 75th idea is probably not as good as the 30th, especially in an overvalued market where good ideas are scarce.

Then you have index funds. On the surface they are over-diversified, but they don’t suffer from the over-diversification headaches of managed funds. In fact, index funds are both over-diversified and under-diversified. Let’s take the S&P 500 – the most popular of the bunch. It owns the 500 largest companies in the US. You’d think it was a diversified portfolio, right? Well, kind of. The top eight companies account for more than 25% of the index. Also, the construction of the index favors stocks that are usually more expensive or that have recently appreciated (it is market-cap-weighted); thus you are “diversified” across a lot of overvalued stocks.

If you own hundreds of securities that are exposed to the same idiosyncratic risk, then are you really diversified?

Our portfolio construction process is built from a first-principles perspective. If a Martian visited Earth and decided to try his hand at value investing, knowing nothing about common (usually academic) conventions, how would he construct a portfolio?

We want to have a portfolio where we own not too many stocks, so that every decision we make matters – we have both skin and soul in the game in each decision. But we don’t want to own so few that a small number of stocks slipping on a banana will send us into financial ruin.

In our portfolio construction, we are trying to maximize both our IQ and our EQ (emotional quotient). Too few stocks will decapitate our EQ – we won’t be able to sleep well at night, as the relatively large impact of a low-probability risk could have a devastating impact on the portfolio. I wrote about the importance of good sleep before (link here). It’s something we take seriously at IMA.

Holding too many stocks will result in both a low EQ and low IQ. It is very difficult to follow and understand the drivers of the business of hundreds of stocks, therefore a low IQ about individual positions will eventually lead to lower portfolio EQ. When things turn bad, a constant in investing, you won’t intimately know your portfolio – you’ll be surrounded by a lot of (tiny-position) strangers.

Portfolio construction is a very intimate process. It is unique to one’s EQ and IQ. Our typical portfolios have 20–30 stocks. Our “focused” portfolios have 12–15 stocks (they are designed for clients where we represent only a small part of their total wealth). There is nothing magical about these numbers – they are just the Goldilocks levels for us, for our team and our clients. They allow room for bad luck, but at the same time every decision we make matters.

Now let’s discuss position sizing. We determine position sizing through a well-defined quantitative process. The goals of this process are to achieve the following: Shift the portfolio towards higher-quality companies with higher returns. Take emotion out of the portfolio construction process. And finally, insure healthy diversification.

Our research process is very qualitative: We read annual reports, talk to competitors and ex-employees, build financial models, and debate stocks among ourselves and our research network. In our valuation analysis we try to kill the business – come up with worst-case fair value (where a company slips on multiple bananas) and reasonable fair value. 

We also assign a quality rating to each company in the portfolio. Quality is absolute for us – we don’t allow low-quality companies in, no matter how attractive the valuation is (though that doesn’t mean we don’t occasionally misjudge a company’s quality).

The same company, at different stock prices, will merit a higher or lower position size. In other words, if company A is worth (fair value) $100, at $60 it will be a 3% position and at $40 it will be a 5% position. Company B, of a lower quality than A but also worth $100, will be a 2% position at $60 and a 4% position at $40 (I just made up these numbers for illustration purposes). 

In other words, if there are two companies that have similar expected returns, but one is of higher quality than the other, our system will automatically allocate a larger percentage of the portfolio to the higher-quality company. If you repeat this exercise on a large number of stocks, you cannot but help to shift your portfolio to higher-quality, higher-return stocks. It’s a system of meritocracy where we marry quality and return.

Let’s talk about diversification. We don’t go out of our way to diversify the portfolio. At least, not in a traditional sense. We are not going to allocate 7% to mining stocks because that is the allocation in the index or they are negatively correlated to soft drink companies. (We don’t own either and are not sure if the above statement is even true, but you get the point.) 

We try to assemble a portfolio of high-quality companies that are attractively priced, whose businesses march to different drummers and are not impacted by the same risks. Just as bank robbers rob banks because that is where the money is, value investors gravitate towards sectors where the value is. To keep our excitement (our emotions) in check, and to make sure we are not overexposed to a single industry, we set hard limits of industry exposure. These limits range from 10%–20%. We also set limits of country exposure, ranging from 7%–30% (ex-US).

In portfolio construction, our goal is not to limit the volatility of the portfolio but to reduce true risk – the permanent loss of capital. We are constantly thinking about the types of risks we are taking. Do we have too much exposure to a weaker or stronger dollar? To higher or lower interest rates? Do we have too much exposure to federal government spending? I know, risk is a four-letter word that has lost its meaning. But not to us. Low interest rates may have time-shifted risk into the future, but they haven’t cured it.

READ: Position Sizing: How to Construct Portfolios That Protect You

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QUANTUM COMPUTING: In Finance?

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

By Staff Reporters

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A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. At small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of both particles and waves, and quantum computing leverages this behavior using specialized hardware. Classic physics cannot explain the operation of these quantum devices, and a scalable quantum computer could perform some calculations exponentially faster than any modern “classical” computer. In particular, a large-scale quantum computer could break widely used encryption schemes and aid physicists in performing physical simulations; however, the current state of the art is largely experimental and impractical.

The basic unit of information in quantum computing is the qubit, similar to the bit in traditional digital electronics. Unlike a classical bit, a qubit can exist in a superposition of its two “basis” states, which loosely means that it is in both states simultaneously. When measuring a qubit, the result is a probabilistic output of a classical bit. If a quantum computer manipulates the qubit in a particular way, wave interference effects can amplify the desired measurement results. The design of quantum algorithms involves creating procedures that allow a quantum computer to perform calculations efficiently and quickly.

Quantum Computing in Finance

Quantum-computing use cases in finance are slightly further in the future. The long-term promise of quantum computing in finance lies in portfolio and risk management.

CITE: https://www.r2library.com/Resource

One example could be quantum-optimized loan portfolios that focus on collateral to allow lenders to improve their offerings.

(Read more about how quantum computing could affect financial services.)

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PORTFOLIO: How to Build One for Today’s Crazy Stock Markets

Posted on February 14, 2022 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

Insights For Doctors and All Investors

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Amazon.com: Vitaliy Katsenelson: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

By Vitaliy Katsenelson CFA

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NOTE: This piece is a little more technical, and contains a bit more stock-market jargon, than most essays you get from me. While how we build portfolios is important to us and our clients, we realize that the puts and takes might bore many readers.

CITE: https://www.r2library.com/Resource/Title/082610254

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https://contrarianedge.com/how-to-build-a-portfolio-for-todays-crazy-markets/?utm_source=IMA++-+Main+Articles&utm_campaign=e32bd08a46-UBER_MONEY_MANAGER_KIDNAPPED_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1c90406d1-e32bd08a46-55139025

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