The following interview appeared in The Ponte Vedra Recorder Aug 31, 2001.

"Butensky & Cohen's Service?  A Night's Sleep"  by Chuck Day

It’s a tale of woe Jan D. Butensky and Allan A. Cohen hear time and again.

“We can’t go anywhere without running into people who can’t sleep because the stock market devastated their investments,” they both say.

Indeed, the namesakes of Butensky & Cohen Financial Security, Inc. in Ponte Vedra Beach undoubtedly could turn what they’ve heard into a killer script for a disaster novel, sell the rights, collect the royalties and retire.

…Except their calling in life is not their own financial security, but their clients’.

Too investment-savvy to ever gloat, the long-time registered investment advisors remain justifiably proud of the fact that – on average – their clients’ portfolios increased in value in 2000 and increased again through the first seven months of this year. That’s right, increased.

Their secret? In a word, discipline.

“It’s simple,” continue Butensky, the firm’s president. “We stick to a disciplined asset allocation approach that is laid out at the beginning of a client relationship, and followed rigorously.”

Significantly, their asset allocation approach almost always includes bonds along with stocks. Bonds? Yes, indeed.

“Two years ago, we had people sitting in this room who laughed at us for making that recommendation, because the stock market was roaring,” recounted Cohen, the firm’s managing director. The market’s subsequent slide has confirmed its wisdom.

Certainly, stocks remain the long-term investment of choice, and the lion’s share of most portfolios they manage. Yet when selected judiciously, bonds will help almost any portfolio navigate Wall Street’s notorious peaks and valleys, Cohen pointed out. And virtually all of their portfolios include bonds that are held until maturity.

Butensky & Cohen’s investment perspective underscores its focus on both meeting financial objectives and properly addressing risk. They believe it is a factor that many investors have ignored. Blending equities and fixed-income investments is the best way to balance financial ambition with fear, they further contend.

“We determine an investor’s comfort level with risk in two ways,” Cohen said.“First, by understanding what investments they currently own. Second, by spending a few hours with a client, to understand what’s in his or her head. “A client’s risk tolerance often is not as high as they content it to be, he noted.

The firm’s typical clients are families and individuals-including many retirees and widows-whose No.1 concern often is wealth preservation. It’s a responsibility that Butensky and Cohen accept very seriously.

“First, we review a client’s assets thoroughly. Next, we develop a plan tailored to the client’s current and future needs-and then we follow that plan,” Butensky said. Momentary market swings won’t upset an overall plan, either.

As tech stocks soared, for example, “We took a portion of the growth and reallocated it according to our plan,” Cohen noted, thus protecting the gains.

Both Jacksonville University graduates, the two have worked together for 21 years, and have guided their own firm for nearly seven years.