>> My name is Chris Mateo [assumed spelling].
I'm Financial Advisor at Merrill Lynch.
I've been working at Merrill Lynch for six years now.
Recent graduate of the PMD Training Program.
I work with a large group on Fifth Avenue that deals with private clients.
We have about 120 clients worth roughly $750 million.
Average client size ranges anywhere between five million and 40 million.
So we, pretty much we back into the investments through financial planning.
We're all certified financial planners.
And what we do is, you know, we look at what's truly important to a client in their life,
whether it be saving for college, saving for retirement, just maybe making as much money
as they possibly can in the market.
There's a wide range of reasons -- saving for a house, getting married.
There's a wide range of reasons why people need their money
and how it could potentially manifest itself in its life.
We always start off a conversation with a client saying, you know, "Where does this money,
when do you need to receive a check and how big does the check need to be?"
So everything's planned into that, so based on a client's risk tolerance and what they're looking
to do in time horizon, timeframe, we set up asset allocation
and we back into our investments that way.
And so then it all starts on how much equity they need, how much fixed income they,
alternative investments, hedge funds, cash, gold, things of that nature.
And then we'll back into, all right, who, what stock to pick, who manages the best fund
to get them to the place they need to be.