Top Shelf Advisors

Top Shelf Advisors provides limited discretionary management of separately managed accounts and supplemental advisory services to individuals and entity clients, explicitly including retirement/pension plans and trusts. The firm also offers financial planning, investment reviews, group education, and periodic subscription services alongside its portfolio management.

Investment decisions are guided by a client-specific timeline that prioritizes a shorter-term liquidity runway and a longer-term focus on equities to preserve purchasing power, with allocations implemented via ETFs, individual securities, bonds and, where appropriate, tactical positions. The brochure describes use of options, futures, currency hedging, and short-selling for certain accounts, and notes accounts are typically held on an independent Platform (Interactive Brokers) where the adviser is appointed as a limited discretionary manager.

What is distinctive for a solo, independent adviser of this size is the breadth of institutional and nonstandard work the firm’s processes support — the brochure frames its capabilities to manage pension and profit-sharing plans and to work with corporate, charitable, banking, insurance, governmental and other investment-adviser clients. It also documents operational and strategy details that are less common for peers, including use of margin and stock borrow for short positions, the use of derivatives and currency futures (typically in $100,000 multiples) for hedging and implementation, and specific custody procedures when advisory fees are directly deducted.