Company Information

Cookson Financial, LLC is a Registered Investment Advisor based in Excelsior, MN. Our extensive experience in both security analysis and portfolio management gives us a unique perspective, allowing us to provide expert and objective investment advice. Our professionals specialize in portfolio management and investment planning.

Cookson Financial concentrates on providing exceptional service to a relatively small number of individuals, trusts, foundations, and endowments. This provides our clients with customized service not available from larger firms. The independence of our firm also allows for completely objective financial advice, free from any conflicting incentives or influences sometimes found in a larger firm.

Despite its small size, Cookson Financial also provides access to world class financial products and services through its account custodian, Charles Schwab & Co. This truly creates a wonderful solution for clients, with the personal service and independence of a small firm, backed up by the resources of one the largest and most respected financial firms in the world.

Who We Are

Mission Statement

Our mission is to provide exceptional investment advice and service, always putting our clients' long term interests first. Cookson Financial will strive to determine an optimal strategy for each client’s portfolio, paying particular attention to appropriate risk levels, retirement needs, and tax implications, in order to provide an ongoing plan for their financial comfort and success.

Business Philosophy

Integrity and excellence are the most important factors to Cookson Financial in business. By integrity we mean complete honesty, loyalty, and confidentiality when dealing with clients, as well as other business contacts. We define excellence as knowledge, responsiveness, good communication and availability, accuracy, completeness, professionalism, a general “can do” attitude, all resulting in satisfied clients, employees, and business contacts. We consider these particularly important qualities when doing business with the successful and sophisticated people Cookson Financial seeks as clients.

Investment Philosophy

Cookson Financial follows the tenets of Modern Portfolio Theory, advocating a broadly diversified portfolio, preferably among investments that have performed well in the past, but have historically shown low correlation to each other. In other words, the strategy is to assemble a portfolio of investments that all look promising, with the inevitable ups and downs among the holdings hopefully not occurring at the same times. Our goal is to maximize portfolio returns, while minimizing overall volatility and risk.

Charitable Account Policy

Cookson Financial pledges to annually donate at least 5% of all income from charitable accounts to other worthy charitable causes.

Fees

Our fees start at a 1% annual fee on assets under management, usually deducted quarterly from your account. There can be additional costs for account transactions, but we receive no further compensation beyond the asset based fee. Our fee is discounted for larger accounts, and is negotiable in special situations.

Manager

Matthew L. Cookson is the Managing Partner of Cookson Financial. Matt worked as a stock trader and broker beginning in 1989. In 1996 he co-founded Strategic Trading, Inc., his own broker-dealer, and an associated hedge fund called the Madison Capital Growth Fund, LLC. He also subsequently co-founded and managed two other hedge funds. During this time Matt also managed numerous individual, retirement, and trust accounts, both for clients of the Funds, and for other brokerage accounts of Strategic Trading.

After selling his broker-dealer in 2002, Matt founded and served as President for Spruce Hill Properties, Inc., a real estate development firm specializing in residential projects.

Late in 2006, Matt made the decision to return to the money management business as an investment advisor. With Cookson Financial, Matt now brings over 22 years of financial analysis experience, and a passion for the financial markets, to the business of helping clients with their investment portfolios.

Over the years, Matt has held the following licenses in the financial and real estate industries: Series 7 (securities broker, 1992-2003), Series 24 (broker-dealer Principal, 1996-2003), Series 65 (Uniform Investment Advisor Law Examination, 2002-present), and a State of Minnesota Real Estate License (2003-2006).

Matt was born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1964. He attended Princeton University, where he captained the golf team for 3 years, and graduated in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in Politics.