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Executive summary:

A traditional approach to the accumulation of wealth prioritizes a static risk/return profile or a risk/return profile that becomes more conservative with age. This may be effective at producing efficient portfolios but has shortcomings when it comes to accomplishing the goals of clients.

On the other hand, goals-based investing builds portfolios specifically to help investors reach their objectives, using techniques such as dynamic reallocation and asset liability matching to improve the probability of success.

Franklin Templeton’s Goals Optimization Engine (GOE®) utilizes multiple inputs to optimize for a portfolio that maximizes the probability of success that an investor’s goals will be met. Internal back testing shows the success of GOE over full market cycles including periods of significant volatility.

What is goals-based investing?

Goals-based investing places an investor’s personal aspirations at the heart of the portfolio construction process. Rather than defining risk in terms of market volatility, it reframes risk the way an individual would—as the possibility of not meeting a future obligation or goal.

Goals-based investing builds portfolios specifically to help investors reach their aspirations, using techniques such as dynamic rebalancing and asset-liability matching to improve the probability of success. Every investment decision—from initial model selection to future adjustments—is made with one objective: helping the client stay on track to achieve what matters most to them.

This paper introduces Franklin Templeton’s Goals Optimization Engine (GOE®)—a technology platform designed to put investors’ goals front and center in the advice process.