Fee-Only Wealth Management · Chicago

We follow the markets so you don't have to.

Independent, fiduciary advice and institutional-caliber research for individuals and families, explained in plain language and built around the life you actually want to live.

30+ Years Managing Portfolios Fee-Only Fiduciary GIPS-Verified Strategies
About Meridith

Thirty years of experience, one client at a time

Meridith Hutchens has spent more than thirty years managing portfolios and advising families through every kind of market. She founded Fortis Private Wealth to bring institutional-caliber research to individual clients, delivered in clear language and without a sales agenda.

She lives and works in Lake View East, and most of her clients come to her around a turning point: retirement, a career transition, an inheritance, or life after divorce or loss. Her goal is simple: that every client understands their own plan well enough to feel confident in it.

Founder

Meridith L. Hutchens is the founder of Fortis Analytics, where she serves as Outsourced Chief Investment Officer, providing white-label investment services, portfolio research, and analytics to financial advisors and institutional investors.

Drawing on decades of experience, she builds outcome-based, risk-conscious strategies — developing proprietary approaches when the strategies her clients need simply don't exist in the market.

Background

Prior to founding Fortis, Meridith was a partner at Polaris Wealth Advisory Group and a wealth advisor at Merrill Lynch.

She holds the Series 65 designation and earned her degree from Tulane University.

Personal

Meridith lives in Chicago with her husband and two adult children.

She is a patron of the arts and a classically trained ballerina.

Table Set for Year End Rally?

With investors lightly positioned heading into Q4, and sentiment at some of the most bearish levels we’ve seen with markets this close to all-time highs, we think there is a reasonable case for the rally to continue through year-end. Start with sentiment. Net...

The Market Got Cheaper While Stocks Rose

In brief During August, we trimmed our holdings in financials and industrial companies, kept a large position in energy, and are spending this fall stress-testing the companies that we own rather than adding to it. Two months ago we wrote that the Federal Reserve had...

July Was Deceptively Calm

The S&P 500 ended July exactly where it started. Flat. After geopolitical shocks, a Fed non-decision that somehow rattled more than it reassured, and a late-month rally that arrived fashionably late — zero net movement. And yet, underneath that deceptively calm...

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