Advanced Financial Strategists, Inc. has a duty to exercise its authority and responsibility for the benefit of its clients, to place the interests of its clients first, and to refrain from having outside interests that conflict with the interests of its clients. AFS and its employees will avoid any circumstances that might adversely affect, or appear to affect, its duty of complete loyalty to its clients. The adviser’s overarching fiduciary duty to clients and the obligation of firm personnel to uphold that fundamental duty are more specifically addressed in these five principals:
1. The duty at all times to place the interests of clients first and that information concerning the identity of security holdings and financial circumstances of clients is confidential;
2. The requirement that all personal securities transactions be conducted in such a manner as to be consistent with the code of ethics, applicable laws and to avoid any actual or potential conflict of interest or any abuse of an employee’s position of trust and responsibility;
3. The principle that investment adviser personnel should not take inappropriate advantage of their positions;
4. Only those investments for which there is a reasonable basis for believing are suitable for a client shall be recommended.
5. The principle that independence in the investment decision-making process is paramount.
It is expected that all supervisory personnel, access persons, and employees conduct business with the highest level of ethical standards keeping in mind at all time AFS’s fiduciary duties to its clients. Failure to comply with the firm’s code of ethics may result in disciplinary action, including termination of employment. It should be noted that any supervised person will be in violation of the code if:
1. By failure to comply with the Code, he has enabled another supervised person to violate or breach the Code; or,
2. If he has knowledge of a Code breach by another in the firm and does nothing about the breach.
