Welcome to

H.L. Lichstrahl & Company, LLC Investment Managers

Honest, Rational, Disciplined. These are the principles that we live by.

We focus on growing our clients’ wealth by compounding long-term after-tax returns while emphasizing capital preservation.

Client First Orientation

We work with each client individually, structuring a portfolio of stocks and bonds that respects their needs while attaining their goals. We are not driven by a marketing department seeking to place the latest strategy in clients’ portfolios. Full transparency is always provided including quarterly portfolio analysis. Monthly statements and transaction confirmations are provided by the independent custodian holding your assets.

Absolute Return Focus

We choose to invest in those companies which we believe offer the greatest long-term potential when they are priced attractively, without concern for how they may benchmark in the short-term to an arbitrary index. Emotional market swings and mindless algorithmic trading may dominate moment to moment market reports but have little to do with the long-term performance of a company’s shares.

Intrinsic Value

We understand the difference between price and value. We are long–term investors in equity (stocks) of businesses with strong operating fundamentals and capable managements when their shares can be purchased at a discount to their intrinsic value. We believe that the price of a company’s shares is ultimately driven by its economic value, not by market mechanisms. “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”

Why choose H.L. Lichstrahl & Company?

Customized portfolio designed around client needs and risk tolerances
Focus on tax-efficient, long-term compounding of returns
Primacy of capital preservation
Rigorous honesty – with ourselves and our clients

H.L. Lichstrahl & Company, LLC- Investment Mangers

Founded in 1996, H.L. Lichstrahl & Company, LLC, is a privately owned Registered Investment Advisor. We follow a disciplined, rigorous, research-driven approach to create and manage personalized investment portfolios for a select clientele.

Registered Investment Advisor

H.L. Lichstrahl & Company is a Registered Investment Advisor. All assets remain in your name and are held by a respected independent custodian to provide full transparency and the highest safety.

Howard L. Lichstrahl, Managing Member and Chief Investment Officer

Howard L. Lichstrahl is Managing Member and Chief Investment Officer of H.L. Lichstrahl & Company. He has more than forty years of investment experience, having held officer positions with several large Wall Street firms, including E. H. Hutton and Company and its successor Shearson, Lehman Brothers. A graduate of The City College of New York, Mr. Lichstrahl earned a Master of Business Administration degree at the University of Miami and has done post-graduate study at the New School for Social Research and Columbia Business School. Mr. Lichstrahl is an active member of the New York Society of Security Analysts, Washington Association of Money Managers, The CFA Institute, and the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing at Columbia Business School.

The H.L. Lichstrahl & Company Difference: Our Investment Philosophy

“Traditionally. The investor has been the man with patience and the courage of his convictions who would buy when the harried or disheartened speculator was selling.”

Benjamin Graham & David Dodd

H.L. Lichstrahl & Company is a small, privately-owned investment management firm dedicated to helping clients achieve their financial goals through research-based, disciplined investing.

Client Focused

Because we’re a small company, we take time to get to know our clients personally. This helps us better understand each client’s risk tolerance and financial goals. There is no such thing as a “one size fits all” investment portfolio.

Value Based Fundamentals

Our research approach is sometimes referred to as “bottom-up” or Graham and Dodd analysis, a time-honored method that emphasizes a value-based, fundamental approach to security selection. We focus on the company itself, not the ups and downs of the overall market.

Honesty & Transparency

Honesty and transparency are always at the forefront of what we do. We’re honest with ourselves and with our clients. We never recommend an investment we wouldn’t choose for ourselves. We ensure transparency in all of our client dealings by providing quarterly reports. We are available to discuss your investments at any time.

Research Driven

We utilize a research driven, value approach to security selection, focusing our analysis on “what is” rather than attempting to forecast “what will be”.

Being an investor means investing in companies with a long-term owner’s mindset. We pay scant attention to quarterly earnings and short-term price targets. Instead, we perform rigorous research on companies for potential investment, asking key question such as:

Is this company financially stable?
Is there a durable competitive advantage?
Are they earning an above-average rate of return on capital, and why?
Is the management team competent, honest, and shareholder-oriented?
Do they wisely reinvest the cash generated by business operations?

We have found that companies that meet these criteria are companies whose earnings power grows over time. The result: returns on invested capital that compound, increasing the value of the business.

Margin of Safety

Once we have uncovered an attractive business, the most important criteria is that we must be able to purchase shares of these companies at an attractive price, that is, at a discount to what we believe the shares of the business would be worth to a knowledgeable, conservative businessperson.

This discount is our “margin of safety.” Despite our extensive research, we realize that unforeseen conditions may arise that impact share prices in the short term. We focus on the long-term prospects of the company’s excess cash earnings potential.

Long Term, Disciplined Investment Strategy

Once the decision is made to invest, we view ourselves as partners in the business and often hold positions for many years, thus allowing us to take full advantage of pre-tax compounding. Discipline means avoiding emotional reactions to market volatility, or short-term price fluctuations, and holding assets to achieve long-term goals.

We take the time to understand each client’s needs, tolerances for risk, and market volatility.
We then customize a portfolio of individual equity and fixed income securities that we believe will provide the long term returns the client is seeking.

Fixed Income Investments

Fixed income investments are managed to find the greatest risk-adjusted value rather than merely purchasing the highest yield or chasing after short-term gains.
We prefer to construct “laddered” portfolios within a limited maturity range to achieve a more stable return. Credit risk is addressed through adequate issuer diversification. In general, the longer the maturity of the issue, the higher the credit rating demanded.

Attempting to maximize fixed income returns by pursuing short-term interest rate movements leads to increased volatility and greater interest rate risk as positions are taken at the yield curve's extremes. Purchasing undervalued or underpriced issues leads to more stable overall returns when interest rates rise and fall.

Leave A Message Now

If you are interested in working with H.L. Lichstrahl & Company, please use our contact form to tell us how you heard about us and to make an appointment.

H.L. Lichstrahl & Company works with a limited number of clients to ensure we can offer the personalized attention our clients require. We welcome referrals from current clients and invite you to contact us using the form below.

Call us at

Email us