Local Couple Creates A Firm To Put People’s Money To Work

By Kaaren Valenta

Many of us make resolutions for the New Year: Lose weight, drink more water, quit smoking, save more money.

And just as it is helpful to enlist the services of a nutritionist or other professional to help develop a healthy lifestyle, the services of a skilled adviser can make a big difference in achieving our financial goals.

“A lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck, yet we have yet to find someone who did not have a bit of money that could be used to invest in their future,” Marianne Noyes-Ryder said. “Some of our clients have as little as $50 a month to invest. Our aim is to increase people’s awareness and help them improve their handling of money.”

Marianne Noyes-Ryder is a financial adviser who formed Noyes-Ryder Capital Management, LLC, in Newtown earlier this year with her husband Rob, after each had spent more than two decades in the financial services industry.

“We offer financial advice and portfolio management to individuals and small businesses,” Ms Noyes-Ryder said. “We were in Stamford for 18 years before coming to Newtown in October 2003, and after we got here we thought we should have our own identity.”

The firm, which also includes two other Newtown residents, Christine Crudo as service assistant and Temple Whitaker as computer operator, uses the resources of JP Morgan Chase and Company and Pershing (PMG Securities clearing company) for brokerage accounts. It is located in their home on Pinnacle Ridge, overlooking the golf course at Rock Ridge Country Club, in the Dodgingtown section of Newtown.

“We offer an all-around program that takes into account personal circumstances, time frames, resources, goals, risk tolerance,” she said. “We do asset allocation and analyze the portfolio every year using an automated system developed for the brokerage industry. There is not a lot of emotion involved.”

Ms Noyes-Ryder also looks at the client’s other financial vehicles — all types of insurance including disability and long-term care, life, health, homeowner liability — and adds them to the mix. Her husband, the research director, does the technical analysis. “I sometimes find myself at 11 or 12 o’clock at night in the office, doing research,” he admitted, acknowledging one of the few pitfalls of working from a home office. “But it is much better than commuting,” he said.

Marianne Noyes-Ryder had started her career as an assistant to three brokers at American Express, then joined Merrill Lynch in 1984. She became an independent contractor in 1989, bringing her husband into her business in 2002.

“He had been driving into New York and was gone 11 hours a day,” she explained. “After 9/11 we decided to try to find a more reasonable lifestyle and working together turned out really well. We also realized we didn’t have to live in Stamford with our three kids.”

They started an Internet search and, as they were talking to real estate brokers,  “Newtown kept popping up.” They sold their home in Stamford in three weeks, found the house in Newtown and moved in before Halloween. Their children, Carden, 17, now a senior at Newtown High School; Nick, 14, a freshman, and Austin, 10, a fifth grader at Reed Intermediate School, quickly adjusted to their new community.

“We really lucked out finding this house,” Ms Noyes-Ryder said. “We have terrific neighbors.”

About seven months after they moved in, Marianne Noyes-Ryder was severely injured when a hit-and-run driver struck her down while she was jogging alongside Route 302.  Although she still goes to physical therapy each week, and may need additional surgery, she is not interested in discussing the experience, except to praise the support that even complete strangers showed.

“We were overwhelmed by the response of the people in this community,” she said. “It reinforced the feeling that moving here was the right decision.”

An acknowledged “people” person, she believes her role is as an educator.

“My job is to inform, education, guide, and point out the risks of investments,” she said. “Through a process of elimination the right plan will evolve for an investor. What sets us apart from most brokers is our through approach and method analysis.”

The market has experienced great highs and devastating lows during the past few decades, she points out.

“We put together a program for each client where the peaks aren’t so high but the loses aren’t so low. We talk to each client every 90 days, send out informative letters to them every month on subjects such as taxes, and rebalance their portfolio every year.”

“We offer superior service, a logical approach, and we treat people right,” she added.

Their service is commission-based. “It would cost the same no matter if we manage it or they take our plan and do it themselves,” Ms Noyes-Ryder said. “We have between 300 and 350 clients and get a lot of referral business.”

 The local Noyes-Ryder Capital Management office can be reached at 270-0462.