The Sungarden Story
What we do, why we do it, how we do it, and more
By Rob Isbitts
Founder, Sungarden Investment Publishing
People don't know what they want until you show it to them. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.” - Steve Jobs
Thank you for finding us! I say that because I’ve spent most of my 38-year career floating under the radar, so to speak. That was not on purpose. But when you simply go to work every day…every single day (what’s a weekend?)...and set high standards for yourself and those around you, there’s not a lot of time for hype and promotion.
The business of investing for yourself is truly a business. We think it should be treated as such. Managing your own money is a benefit of having made enough for it to matter. It is also a responsibility, one that we think should not be left to chance, or to “financial experts” with questionable motives.
Whether that is $300k, $3mm or $30mm, we think that what we have created at Sungarden Investment Publishing (SIP) is what a lot of successful people want, especially if they are within 10 years of retiring or already retired. As for me, I’m somewhere between “micro-retired” and never, ever retiring.” As they say, I’ll retire when I can’t find the office. Since we work from home, I don’t plan on that being the case any time soon.
Regardless, we have surrounded ourselves with some sharp investment analyst talent that helps us focus on delivering what we think a particular type of self-directed investor wants, but has not been able to find. That’s because today’s investor has to sift through so much screaming, short-attention-span teasers, snake oil salespeople, social media “financial experts,” and even many tactics exhibited by “trad-fi” (traditional finance), such as financial advisors, brokers and fund companies.
You see, I haven’t seen it all but I’ve seen a lot. That’s what 120,000+ hours in the investment business will do. And while we have tremendous respect for the dedication, ethics and professionalism exhibited by many financial advisors and money managers, we would not have created what we did here if we did not think that there was a major gap to fill.
What is it we think people want, but have not been shown (until now)?
A total investing/portfolio/research system with true risk-management
Ongoing “play-by-play” of what I’m doing with my own portfolio
Frequent live, interactive sessions and rapid response to questions
People who listen to their audience so the service keeps improving
Accountability via a regular process of “looking in the mirror”
A price point that makes two things clear:
This isn’t for everyone, not only due to the subscription price
We mean business: we do what others don’t or can’t
A research service that exploits the limitations of classic Wall Street
NOT an advisory service. Our best thinking, to apply as you wish.
What influenced/created today’s Sungarden?
My career began in 1986 in the beloved World Trade Center in NYC, gazing at the crowds standing in line to pull up their stock tickers at the discount brokerage office on the ground floor.
Nearly 4 decades later, I’ve been a partner of a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), Chief Investment Strategist of a $3 billion investment firm and later, with my wife of 31 years, Dana, built and sold a boutique RIA firm. We called that firm and its successor investment research/publishing firm “Sungarden” because late last century, we moved to the Sunshine State (FL) from my home state, the Garden State (NJ). We raised our 3 kids here, exited the investment advisory business in 2020, and then retired…just kidding! We decided that wasn’t for us.
Along the way, I wrote 3 investment books, roughly 1,000 articles for several major publications, was selected as one of the top wealth advisors in the US for 4 years in a row by Forbes, and most importantly, never stopped learning how to get a little bit better every day. All while staying humble in a business known for bravado and testosterone.
I’ve written about investing and market strategy since 1998, so as as more and more freelance writing “gigs” started to find me, we picked and choosed, but set our sites on something very meaningful to us: using our own investment approach as a reference point for others trying to figure out how they should handle their own investment portfolio.
Importantly, I NEVER tell YOU what you should do. I let you know what I am doing, and you decide how to use it. That’s a “model signal service”: investment and portfolio research, not investment advisory.
What do Sungarden Institutional subscribers get?
Three (3) straightforward portfolios divided into clear, sensible “buckets.” I show you how I mix them. You use them as you wish.
Research and commentary on the securities that make up those portfolios. Depending on the bucket, that may be stocks, ETFs, options, bonds, cash equivalents or a combination.
Alerts whenever I make changes to any of the portfolios, with a trade rationale summary each time (what is it and why did I buy or sell it?).
Most importantly (to us): a comprehensive and coordinated investing approach! While my portfolio is allocated across 3 different strategies, I NEVER lose sight of the most important decision I think any investor makes: What’s my ROAR Score?
What is a ROAR Score?
With all of the chatter, data and conflicting opinions that smothers self-directed investors every time they look at their phones, I think it all boils down to this: at any point in time, what level of risk of major loss am I willing to take? Because, while any investment can go up at any time for any reason, what varies over time is how much risk is attached to pursuing that return. Years ago, I created a way to summarize this in a single number, which serves as the “north star” for my work.
We call it the ROAR (Reward Opportunity And Risk) Score
The ROAR Score is a number between 0 (least aggressive) and 100 (most aggressive) that is evaluated constantly to keep me “within myself” as an investor. My attitude is this: I can live with missing some opportunities. But I won’t stand for losing big chunks of hard-earned capital! Our main ROAR Score is typically reviewed on a weekly basis. At times, it fluctuates frequently, but it also go several months without a change. Here is a graph of the ROAR Score during the full years 2022-2023. We update subscribers any time we change this bottom-line proprietary macro indicator.
Why offer this Institutional service now?
We could not have offered this during most of my career. Our business was providing personalized, fiduciary investment advice to a limited number of families. This “micro-retired” phase of our lives, combined with a post-pandemic investment climate that is so different from the “traditional” one today’s investors grew up with, come together to demand something more than 60/40 portfolios, more than stock-picking, more than high-yield/high-risk propositions, and more than “alternative” strategies that promise the moon but remove vital liquidity.
Yet as complex as the markets and learning to fend for themselves as investors, here’s something you might not expect to hear from someone like me. My message to traditional investment types: “y’all are making this way too complicated!” So, we dovetail sophistication and flexibility with a determination to avoid the “paralysis by analysis” we see elsewhere.
I think this service is very much in tune with what matters in modern markets. The post-pandemic era has changed the way markets work, how investors think and who those investors are (many are not people, they are machines!). So this is not "what I did for decades" as an advisor, but "how I am managing my own money in a post-pandemic era, using a full set of investment tools."
What does it cost?
The Institutional service is priced at $300 a month. That's pretty high for someone with a very small asset base, but that's not who it is intended for.
According to a study by Advisory HQ News Corp, the average financial advisor fee in 2021 was 1.02% for $1 million AUM, which adds up to $10,200 annually. On $500,000, it is $5,100. On $350,000, it is $3,570. Many firms are higher, and hedge funds charge a multiple of that. And what do you get for that price?
At many solid investment firms, you get thoughtful, risk-sensitive, professional money management, and they trade your account for you and act as a fiduciary. At many other places, you get none of that. You get a sales pitch on the way in, your money is shuffled off to a “3rd party manager” which in some cases has revenue-sharing deals with the advisor, and you get a lot of excuses when the markets get rough. “Hang in there, time in the market over timing the markets, don’t miss the best 10 days, be a long-term investor.” Pardon us while we get one of those bags they provide on airplanes!
We do not operate in a personalized manner in any way
I dropped my fiduciary (Series 65) license when we sold our advisory practice in 2020. I’ve been in the investment trenches for 30+ years, and lived to tell about it. And now, with my team, we want to help “do-it-yourself” investors and institutions (including financial advisors seeking a research engine) to do it themselves! But we think it is easier to do so if you have ongoing insights and an organized structure that we provide to subscribers of the Sungarden Institutional model signal service.
Steve Jobs was right:
People don't know what they want until you show it to them.
We’d like to show you what we think investors want. But they just haven’t seen it yet.