Connected Financial Strategies LLC

Connected Financial Strategies LLC is a newly registered investment adviser that provides discretionary investment management, financial planning, and retirement-plan advisory services to individuals, high-net-worth clients, trusts, estates, businesses and plan sponsors. The firm also offers ERISA-focused retirement plan services designed to assist plan sponsors with vendor analysis, investment policy development, participant education, benchmarking and ongoing investment recommendations.

Investment portfolios are typically constructed with a core emphasis on exchange-traded funds and a generally long-term orientation, supplemented by mutual funds, individual stocks or bonds as appropriate; the firm uses both fundamental and technical analysis and implements periodic rebalancing. CFS may delegate all or a portion of portfolio implementation to unaffiliated independent managers or platforms and performs initial and ongoing oversight and due diligence of those managers.

Compared with many peers in the investment-manager space, the firm’s explicit combination of pension/retirement plan consulting (3(21) services) and formal selection and oversight of other advisers is a distinctive feature. The adviser operates with a small advisory team, does not hold client custody except for authorized fee deductions, and discloses both an institutional relationship that provides software and support from its recommended custodian and that advisory personnel maintain insurance licenses and may receive commissions for insurance products.