As Windhaven assets head moonward, Stephen Cucchiaro keeps right on warning of falling skies in New York

What a load of bollocks.

looks like a paid advertisement of failed fund. Schwab should be ashamed for buying into this crap

Windhaven. This is the last time I ever get sold on a managed account. Everytime I have I have regretted it. I have done better with $10,000 in one stock over two months than the expert, rich cats at Windhaven have done in two years with over $100,000 of my money. And multiply that by have a dozen more of my stocks over two years.

What’s up with that Charles? Heads ought to be rolling. But I guess that doesn’t have in the upper investment circles. I don’t know much about investing, just basics, yet I can do 3-4 times as better than these big shots. Your clients would do better to listen to me. I’ll work for a lot cheaper. You could make a graphic that shows how much better Andy can do for your clients than the various managed funds.

I’m really disappointed. I think Charles really owes a lot of clients for this. No excuses. But he has people coming up with contrived graphics to deceive people even more. It’s simple, let’s not look at 10 years history, lets not look at graphs where the selection criteria for securities produce favorable numbers, let’s not talk about long term. Lets just compare how much of my money you have had over the last year or two and how much money you have made.

If a managed fund can’t make more than the index then you don’t need it.

Andrew,

Thank you for weighing in thoughtfully. It’s particularly good to hear from real investors.

My experience suggests you may not hear from Charles.

If I were to play his advocate (for furthering this discussion), I’d say, and you alluded to in your comment, that Windhaven errs on the side of underperforming in a hot market and we are in a pretty hot market. It errs that way so that if the market dips 30% that you can sleep at night knowing that you have a carefully crafted asset allocation and diversification to blunt the blow.

But I think what I hear you saying is that Windhaven is an expensive way to get broad diversification?

Maybe somebody can weigh in on where Windhaven has an edge or not that goes beyond holding a series of index funds.

And maybe you can say what attracted you to Windhaven in the first place?

thanks,

Brooke
RIABiz

I might be willing to sacrifice a some performance If I thought I would be getting SIGNIFICANT protection against a sever market crash. That was a major selling point of Windhaven. I get it, but the performance has been just too poor. The securities they pick, just too volatile, even now. In the recent market, almost any picks should be doing well. It has eroded my confidence just too much. I certainly don’t expect any index fund to protect me, that’s not where I am. I’m picking stocks where I see that they weathered the dive of 2008-2009 well. And I’m also making money on them now. I bet I don’t do 1/100 the research that Windhaven or Schwabs. I think the safety argument is valid but no where near sufficient. Why are they doing so poorly?

Yes, somebody better steeped in portfolio management would have to explain what basis there is for the returns falling so far short of benchmarks and what it is about Windhaven funds that makes significant cushioning likely in the event of a major downswoop to compensate.

If Schwab offers an explanation, please share it here.

thanks,

Brooke

The aforementioned comments made by “Sammy”, “wes”, and “Andrew Gliniak” are neither supported by any reasonable argument nor have any basis in reality: Schwab “bought into this” because it works. Please go to the Windhaven website and examine his track record. And as for investing small amounts of money with Windhaven and trying to make a quick large sum of money — that is not the purpose of Windhaven. The purpose of Windhaven, as put eloquently by Brooke Southall, is for (in most cases) high net-worth individuals, pensions, large entities etc., to be provided not only very favorable returns but very relatively favorable returns in all possible conditions of the market.

Except for Mr. Southall, you three need to do some serious research and educate yourselves about Windhaven and what this extremely sophisticated man has built before you dismiss it as “bullocks” and deem it ineffective. If not, then kindly keep your half-baked thoughts, which have no basis in objective reality, to yourselves. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Marshall Donovan

Hi Marshall,

My job is always to play devil’s advocate. The long, long term results look okay but any recent returns would seem to less than a slam dunk.

https://www.windhaveninvestments.com/map/StrategyPerformance.action?nav=strategy&nav2=ourportperf&nav3=2012

(Is it just my computer, browser (Chrome) or are all the return figures blurred beyond reading on the Windhaven site?)

I’m still not clear on what Windhaven does that differs from most broadly diversified portfolios. I presume that Stephen does the work to diversify intelligently but I think myself and others could use a little more sense of just what that means.

thanks for taking your stand,

Brooke

I agree with Andrew. I found this site because I’m trying to find news on Windhaven. I’m very disappointed with Windhaven. I choose it because it seemed like they were 'the big people’ in high finance and investing and should know how to invest. It would be nice to find analysis about Windhaven from a source other than Windhaven and Schwab. That’s what I’m looking for because at this point I’ll give it until Jan. 1, 2014 and then make a decision to stay or get out. So far, I haven’t been able to find any news or analysis like you can, for example, Pimco total return.