Working with Horizons

Is there a charge for meeting with you?

No, your initial consultation is offered free of charge. We need to meet to see if we are a good fit for each other.

What do I need to start?

Prior to our initial, complimentary meeting, we ask that you download our Preliminary Client Worksheet and SRI Policy Worksheet. By filling these out in advance, you give us the opportunity to do an in-depth evaluation of your needs and investment goals, and if you already have investments it is helpful to bring copies of your statements and tax returns.

Do you have a minimum investment requirement?

We don’t require a minimum investment because we believe everyone should have access to a good financial advisor, regardless of their net worth.

Do I have to be in Santa Fe, or can you work with clients at a distance?

We can work with clients in any location. Horizons has teleconferencing capabilities, so we can conduct “in-person” meetings wherever you are, to help us maintain a personal connection.

Do you do stock trading?

Individual stocks are an option for clients with larger total assets, usually in the over-$250,000 range.

How do I get money from my account?

To withdraw or transfer money from your account you need to speak with one of us directly. We cannot accept trade information via voicemail or email.

How liquid is my money?

Mutual funds trade at the end of the day and you can receive the funds in 2–4 days. Individual stocks take 3 days to close, and you will receive cash in 3–5 days.

What can I do with my old 401K?

You can roll it over into your own Individual Retirement Account (IRA), which gives you control over how it is invested.

I’d like to start a retirement account. Do I need a nest egg to begin?

You can start a retirement account with as little as $100 per month. The key is to get started.

Sustainable, Responsible, Impact (SRI) Investing FAQs

What is “SRI”?

People have used a lot of different words to describe our basic business model — Socially Responsible Investing, Socially Conscious Investing, Socially Aware Investing, Responsible Investing, Green Investing, Ethical Investing, Values-Based Investing, Mission-Related Investing, Natural Investing, Stewardship Investing, Sustainable and Responsible Investing, Environmental-Social-Governance Issues Investing … The basic idea behind all of these labels, though, is simple. SRI is an investment strategy that adds an additional layer to traditional investing: the consideration of values, with the goal of ensuring that your investments have a positive impact on society and the environment.

Who decides what values to promote with my portfolio?

You do! We will not tell clients what principles they ought to endorse, or what moral commitments they ought to make – but we trust that we will be able to work with the vast majority of the investors who seek us out. To this end, we will use as many of the four key SRI processes as we can for each of our clients:

  • Screening: Most people who talk about SRI think first of “negative screening” – keeping shares of companies involved in tobacco, alcohol, and firearms (for example) out of their portfolios. This is an important part of SRI, but it’s only the first step. The next step is “positive screening” – seeking out those publicly traded companies which are involved in industries that are likely to have a positive impact, and to help create a sustainable economy in the future.
  • Advocacy: But screening alone can’t really make a company change its fundamental business strategies. Sometimes, our clients will own the shares of companies that might offend against their moral values, in order to use their rights as shareholders to change the company’s behavior. This kind of “shareholder advocacy” is an incredibly powerful tool for changing the behavior of the corporate America.
  • Community: It is possible to invest more directly in the lives of individuals and their communities. Through the mechanisms of “community investments” or “micro-credit”, we can help provide capital to areas that have difficulty attracting funds from traditional sources. Within the United States and around the world, the loan funds provided by socially-conscious investors help individuals and communities to build vibrant local economies.
  • Impact: For some clients, there may be opportunities to invest in the tiniest companies, pushing forward the most exciting new developments in such exciting areas as sustainable energy, ecologically-sensitive farming, or wasteless manufacturing. While there are significant federal restrictions regarding which investors may currently participate in the venture capital and private placement marketplaces, we are working to find new ways to get involved in this type of investment opportunity, and to increase the impact everyone’s investments can have.

What about performance?

For a long time, investors and advisors have assumed that using SRI investment strategies were necessarily going to perform worse than non-SRI strategies. But over the last couple of decades, academic studies have shown that SRI strategies either do not significantly impact portfolio performance, or offer a very slight performance advantage. Some of the best of these studies are from US SIF, “The Sustainable Investment Forum”. And real-world results bear that out: the MSCI KLD 400 Social Index has existed since 1990, and has consistently performed very much like the non-SRI index to which it’s most similar. MSCI publishes a fact-sheet on the index here: MSCI-social-index.pdf