The Appleton Group LLC

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The Appleton Group LLC
CRD #119209
SEC #801-62598
CIK #0001454759
AUM
Employees 7 (71% Investors, 0% Brokers)
Fees
Minimum
Phone920-993-7727
Address100 W Lawrence St
Appleton, WI 54911
Source [IAPD] [EDGAR] [Website]
Total AUM ($M)
2502001501005002000200820162025
Fees and Compensation — Form ADV Part 2A (3/27/2023) [Brochure]
Item 5	 Fees and Compensation

                                             Fee Schedule Disclosures

ADVISER provides investment management services. ADVISER manages client accounts for a percentage of the assets
under its management. As compensation for the advisory services that ADVISER provides to clients during each forthcoming
quarterly time period, client pays ADVISER a fee on the first business day of each calendar quarter. Unless otherwise
agreed, the following fee schedule applies:

                                          Separately Managed Accounts

                                    Investment Advisory Fees - Private Client Service

                 Managed Assets                                            Annual Advisory Fee
                 $0 - $4,999,999                                                  1.00%
                 $5,000,000 - $19,999,999                                         0.70%
                 $20,000,000 +                                                    0.50%

                   Maximum Investment Management Fees within Separate Managed Accounts

                 Strategies                                            Investment Management Fee
                 Risk-Managed Portfolios                                          0.40%
                 Hybrid Portfolios                                                0.40%
                 Focus Portfolios                                                 0.40%
                 Risk Accepting Portfolios                                        0.00%

                                             Appleton Group Charitable

                                               Investment Advisory Fees

                 Managed Assets                                            Annual Advisory Fee
                 $0 - $999,999                                                    0.50%
                 $1,000,000 - $1,999,999                                          0.40%
                 $2,000,000 +                                                     0.30%

                        Employer Sponsored Qualified Retirement Plan Program
                                               Investment Advisory Fees

     An annualized fee of up to 1.00% on Plan assets that are not segregated into self-directed brokerage accounts.

                                  General Advisory Service Fee Disclosures

 “Assets Under Management” is defined to include: all investments and securities (including both taxable and tax-deferred),
trusts, retirement plans, IRA’s, custodial accounts, investment real estate, limited partnerships, and variable insurance
products. Assets Under Management does not include: Client’s personal use assets (such as residences and vehicles),
collectibles (such as artwork and coins), defined benefit retirement plans, social security benefits, certain real estate, and
closely held business interests.

Client’s fee will be determined by combining the fair market value (measured on the last business day of the prior calendar
quarter) of all of Client’s Assets Under Management. As Client’s assets actually get transferred over to ADVISER’s control,
or whenever Client makes a deposit in excess of $10,000 in an account, partial time periods will be billed proportionally.

Clients who choose to have multiple investment strategies (including multiple portfolio designs, multiple implementations
and multiple reviews, rebalancings, reports, revisions, and reallocations) will pay separate quarterly fees, on each strategy.
Client agrees to authorize custodian(s) of Client’s account, to withdraw fees from Client’s account(s) and then electronically
transfer these fees to Appleton Group, LLC, unless otherwise agreed.

Client agrees to pay ADVISER a late penalty in the amount of $100 per month or 2% per month, whichever is greater, for
any fees or expense reimbursements that ADVISER receives more than ten business days late. Client agrees to pay all
ADVISER’s reasonable attorneys fees and collection costs if ADVISER has uncollected accounts-receivable from Client
for more than a month. Client acknowledges that ADVISER will immediately stop providing all counsel services (including
financial planning, portfolio design, asset allocation, rebalancing, and performance reporting) in the event that ADVISER has
uncollected accounts-receivable from Client for more than a month.

For additional information on other types of fees or expenses that may be incurred in managing client accounts please refer
to Item 12 Brokerage Practices - Other Expenses and Charges.
Account Minimums and Types of Clients — Form ADV Part 2A (3/27/2023) [Brochure]
Item 7	 Types of Clients

ADVISER generally provides investment advice to the following:

•	      Individuals
•	      High net worth individuals
•	      Pension plans/profit sharing plans
•	      Foundations/charities
•	      Government/municipal
•	      Selection of Other Advisers/Solicitors

ADVISER manages separate accounts exclusively on a discretionary trading basis. ADVISER’s minimum investment
amount for establishing and maintaining an account is $200,000 and an Employer Sponsored Qualified Retirement Plan is
$1,000,000. Exceptions may be granted to this minimum.

Item 8 Method of Analysis, Investment Strategies and Risk of Loss

Investment Philosophy - The Appleton Group Wealth Management Discipline™ is designed to address an investor’s
desire to achieve useful, meaningful portfolio returns over time while considering identifiable levels of investment risk for
the client’s selected strategy. We offer a complete suite of risk-accepting, risk-managed and hybrid strategies designed to
target net portfolio returns over time that are necessary for an individual investor to maintain distributions in retirement, for
endowments/pensions to meet spending goals in perpetuity, and for pre-retirees to achieve measurable progress toward
saving goals.

The Appleton Group Wealth Management Discipline™ combines three fundamental aspects of successful portfolio
management. Deciding 1) What to own, 2) How much to own, and 3) When to own. Each strategy we offer addresses these
three factors in varying ways, and generally targets using a combination of “growth assets” and “money market assets”
depending on current economic conditions and/or the strategy selected. Implementation of The Appleton Group Wealth
Management Discipline™ is designed to be systematic in nature, objective, dispassionate, and most importantly is designed
to produce performance characteristics that are predictable and repeatable over time.

Core Strategies

Used as a significant portion of an investor’s total portfolio, these strategies include the vast majority of our firm’s offerings.
They’re built primarily using broadly-diversified ETFs, most of which are transaction fee-free. With ultra-low investment
expenses, they’re designed to be efficient, easy-to-use, and fully liquid at all times. They come in three broad categories:

Risk-Accepting Strategies – Appleton Group’s Risk-Accepting Strategies are traditional portfolios that offer permanent
market exposure through all market environments. They’re built primarily using low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and
are diversified across multiple market styles (growth & value, large & small market caps, domestic & international, equity &
fixed income). As is the case with every “buy & hold” strategy, they are built for investors who wish to remain fully invested
through both good markets and bad. They tend to be tax-efficient, easy to understand, and are periodically rebalanced to
bring their overall asset mix in-line with predetermined targets.

Our risk-accepting strategies typically experience a wider range of annual outcomes, and come in three basic “flavors:”
Traditional-Income Focused, Traditional-Growth & Income, and Traditional-Aggressive Growth.

Risk-Managed Strategies – For investors who seek proactive downside protection, Appleton Group offers a complete suite
of risk-managed investment strategies. Powered by clearTREND® (our firm’s selected financial engine) these portfolios
automatically adjust an investor’s market exposure to maximize exposure to growth assets during periods of sustained
market advances while maximizing exposure to defensive assets during sustained market declines. Long-term returns are
expected to be comparable to our suite of traditional strategies but with significantly lower drawdowns and reduced volatility
along the way.

Risk-managed strategies include: Appleton Group Portfolio (AGP), AGP-Moderate, AGP-Conservative, Tax-Managed
Growth (TMG), and TMG-Conservative.

Hybrid Strategies – Designed for the various stages of every investor’s life, Appleton Group’s Age-Based Hybrid portfolios
combine both traditional risk-accepting strategies with our more flexible risk-managed strategies to create a suite of offerings
based on age. As an investor gets older, these portfolios generally become more conservative by increasing their exposure
to risk-managed strategies (thereby reducing exposure to risk-accepting strategies). As “hybrids,” their expected returns
tend to be somewhat higher than traditional buy & hold strategies but with the potential for increased downside protection
(especially in later years).

Our hybrid portfolios are rebalanced regularly, which increases exposure to the strategy that may have recently
underperformed. This feature can help to take advantage of short-term differences in performance between the two
strategies, with the potential for additional compounding over time. Age-based strategies are: Appleton Group Age-Based
18-29, Age-Based 30-39, Age-Based 40-49, Age-Based 50-59, and Age-Based 60+.

Focus Strategies

Appleton Group also offers a number of risk-managed strategies built to augment our firm’s suite of Core Strategies. These
strategies range from more assertive individual stock portfolios to U.S sector and socially-conscious ETFs to high dividend-
paying income strategies. They are: clearTREND® Opportunities, U.S. Sectors, Managed Income, Ultra and Social Impact
Portfolio.

Method of Analysis
Appleton Group manages our risk-managed and flexible elements of our age-based hybrid strategies using clearTREND,
our firm’s trend-following methodology. Over our firm’s history, this discipline has incorporated research from both internal
and external sources to identify key turning points for the managed securities incorporated in these strategies.

For our suite of traditional and static elements of our hybrid strategies, Appleton Group uses industry-standard efficiency
...
CIK Period
0001454759
Sector Form 13F Holdings Value ($M)
Marathon Petroleum Corp 0.5
Eaton Corp Ltd 0.4
Facebook Inc 0.4
HealthEquity Inc 0.4
TJX Companies Inc /DE/ 0.4
Seagate Technology PLC 0.3
Pangaea Logistics Solutions Ltd 0.3
Wiley John & Sons Inc 0.3
Garmin Ltd 0.3
CVS Caremark Corp 0.3
Scansource Inc 0.3
Southern Co 0.3
Uipath Inc 0.3
Nicolet Bankshares Inc 0.2
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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AUM Breakdown Accounts AUM ($M)
By Client Type
(a) Individuals (other than high net worth individuals) 197 64.3
(b) Individuals (high net worth individuals) 37 68.4
(c) Banking or thrift institutions 0 0.0
(d) Investment companies 0 0.0
(e) Business development companies 0 0.0
(f) Pooled investment vehicles 0 0.0
(g) Pension and profit sharing plans 0 0.0
(h) Charitable organizations 0 0.0
(i) State or municipal government entities 0 0.0
(j) Other investment advisers 0 0.0
(k) Insurance companies 0 0.0
(l) Sovereign wealth funds and foreign official institutions 0 0.0
(m) Corporations or other businesses not listed above 8 61.3
(n) Other 0 0.0
Total 242 194.1
By Discretionary
Discretionary 242 194.1
Non-Discretionary 0 0.0
Total 242 194.1
By Non-United States Persons
Non-United States Persons 0.7
United States Persons 193.4
Total 242 194.1
EDGAR Form CIK 2011 - 2026
13F-HR [0001454759]
Firm Profile (Form ADV)
Discretionary AUM$0.1B
ServesRetail, Research
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