Application for Financial Advisory Listing/Advertising on The White Coat Investor Website

Personal and Firm Information

Your Name: Rick Alphonso, JD, CPA/PFS, M.S.T. Steve Estrin, MBA Name of Firm: The Financial Advisory Group Insert link to your website: http://www.finadvisors.com/home Insert link to your ADV2: http://www.finadvisors.com/files/FINAL%20-%20Financial%20Advisory%20Group%20- %20ADV%20Part%202A%2031616.pdf (Also Attached) Which services do you provide: Financial Planning Both - Yes Other services (please list): - We provide Financial Planning, Investment Management, Tax Services, as well as (thru our sister company), Practice Management Services for our Physician clients as well

Years of financial experience: 25 Years of experience with financial planning or investment management for individuals: 25 Years your firm been in : - 20 years – We were founded in 1997

Which of the following designations do you hold (Check all that apply): CFA - Yes CFP - Yes ChFC CLU CPA - Yes PFS - Yes EA MBA - Yes BS or MS in finance related field – Yes Other (please list): - JD - M.S.T. (Master’s Degree in Taxation) Have you had any events in the past that are reportable to regulatory agencies? If so, please attach explanation. - No. Have any of your former clients sued you? What was the outcome? Please attach explanation. - No. Are you currently involved in a lawsuit by a client or former client? Please attach explanation. - No.

Fee Structure

How do you get paid (check all that apply): Commissions on investment products – No Commissions on insurance products – No Hourly rate – No Annual retainer - Yes Flat fee for financial plan – Yes AUM Fee - Yes Other (Please list): - We are a flat fee fiduciary, charging a flat annual fee, comprised of Financial Planning, Investment Management (AUM), & Tax Services - Billed quarterly in advance

How much do you charge? Please list your fee structure. If there is a range of possible fees readers can expect to pay, what is the range and what determines where in the range they would fall. If you use AUM fees, be sure to list what a reader would pay with $100K, $500K, $1M, and $2M in assets. - Please see attached copy of our fee schedule. Financial planning and tax engagements are priced based on complexity. Discounts are given for using multiple services.

What is the minimum amount of assets required for you to take a client? - The Financial Advisory Group does not employ minimum asset amounts.

If you receive payment for insurance product commissions, what percentage of your business revenue do they make up? - The Financial Advisory Group does not receive commissions on any kind.

Do you consider yourself a fiduciary? - Yes.

Do you routinely sign a fiduciary agreement with clients? - Yes.

Investment Philosophy

Do you use tactical ? If so, please explain your process. Yes. We manage 5 risk profiles from very conservative to aggressive. We have a baseline level of equity exposure for each risk profile and increase or decrease that exposure based on economic outlook and valuations.

Do you believe you can time the market sufficiently well to beat a comparable low-cost fund after fees? We do not employ a market timing strategy. We do believe, however, that current valuations drive future returns. Therefore we believe that increasing allocations as appropriate to relatively undervalued asset classes and decreasing allocations to relatively undervalued asset classes can improve performance over the term.

Do you pick individual for clients? No.

Do you believe most physicians should own a cash value life insurance policy of any type? If so, what type and why? Yes. The type of insurance is very client specific. Some clients may need a measure of second to die whole life for estate tax purposes while others may need it to fulfill obligations resulting from successive marriages and children from a previous marriage. In still other circumstances, it can be a useful savings strategy after maxing out tax-advantaged savings and a baseline level of taxable savings.

Do you believe you can select managers who can beat an index fund in the same asset class over the long term going forward? Yes. We use index exposure for a core allocation and to supplement where appropriate.

What percentage of a typical client portfolio would you place into actively managed mutual funds or ETFs? At the moment, about 47% of our allocation is active.

What role do fees play in your selection of individual investments? All funds are evaluated on performance and risk measures net of fees. We use low cost ETFs for passive exposure and institutional classes (with lower expense ratios) for actively managed funds. Additionally, we want to make sure if we are using active management, the strategy is differentiated enough to justify paying an expense ratio higher than an index fund.

What fund companies do you routinely use? (Check all that apply) Vanguard – Yes. DFA – No. Bridgeway – No. iShares – Yes. Other (Please list): State Street

Do you routinely engage in tax-loss harvesting for clients in their taxable accounts? Yes.

Physician Specific Issues

How many physicians and/or dentists are you currently advising? (i.e. managed assets of or met with in the last year): 110

What do you feel is your biggest value-add for a doctor? - With over 20 years of experience in working with physicians, we understand & deal regularly with the various challenges, obstacles, compensation structures, & investment opportunities physicians (of all walks of life) come in contact with & must make decisions on, as they navigate through their financial life - Our sister company, The Practice Advisory Group (PAG), maintains & manages physician’s offices all over the country. PAG assists our physicians in areas such as accounting, record keeping, payroll, HR, helping the physician locate & establish new practices, along with the other various handlings that accompany a successfully managed practice.

Do you consider yourself qualified to give high-quality advice on all of the following student loan related issues: IBR, PAYE, REPAYE, PSLF, deferment, forbearance, and student loan refinancing? Why or why not? Is this advice included in your regular fees listed above? - Our firm is uniquely qualified to handle these sorts of issues. As previously mentioned, our firm deals with a large number of doctors, as well as lawyers/engineers, all of which are fields that require a large investment of intellectual capital to get started. How many clients have you assisted with a Backdoor Roth IRA in the last year? - 81

Which of the following accounts do you consider yourself an expert on? (check all that apply) 401(k) - Yes 403(b) - Yes 457(b) - Yes Individual 401(k) - Yes SEP-IRA - Yes SIMPLE IRA - Yes Traditional IRA - Yes Roth IRA - Yes HSA - Yes Profit-sharing Plan - Yes Defined Benefit/Cash Balance Plan - Yes Others (Please list): - 529 Education Accounts, - Promissory Notes, - Opportunities Presented to Physicians o i.e. – Surgical Centers, Imaging Centers, New or Additional Practices, New Equipment, etc. What steps do you proactively take in a market downturn to improve investor behavior? The work PRIOR to a market downturn to do help clients understand what level of risk they should be taking and what type of drawdown in actual dollars they could face as a result of that level of risk is a crucial step. Thereafter, we discuss market movements in a quarterly newsletter to help educate clients on what markets have done and what we feel are reasonable expectations for the future.

Anything else that you would like me to take into consideration with regards to your application? (Attach additional documentation as desired)