FAS History
FAS is the brainchild of Mr. Jeff Sickler. Jeff started his investment career in 1996. He was faced early on with a critical decision: choose to be a Fiduciary or a broker. A Fiduciary is obligated to act in the best interests of the client; brokers are not. Jeff chose to be a Fiduciary. He focused his business on defined contribution plans such as 401k, 403b, and 457 plans. A consultant in this space is held to a fiduciary standard per the Department of Labor. When the Mutual Fund Companies came out with a one-stop Mutual Fund called a Target Date for 401k plan participants, Jeff was asked to use the products on his plans. As a Fiduciary, he was obligated to perform due diligence. He back tested the Target Date funds and found that they had poor risk-return metrics: negative alpha and subpar beta. The discovery was eye-opening. Jeff took it upon himself to find a strategy that would deliver better risk-return metrics. He loved the challenge and spent countless hours researching ideas and analyzing data. This labor of love led him to another eye-opening discovery: Macro-Micro Portfolio Architecture™️.
Jeff partnered with James Clayton to form FAS. Their goal was to make Macro-Micro Investing widely available to financial advisors. James is a retired executive with more than 20 years as a fiduciary managing his company’s defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans. Complementing the team as advisors are Michael Goldberg – Professor of Economics and co-author of Imperfect Knowledge Economics and Beyond Mechanical Markets (Princeton University Press) — and William Wohlharth — retired engineer with 40+ years of major-league executive experience.