Fees and fiduciary duty
You pay us. Nobody else does.
That sentence does more work than it looks like. When an advisor is paid by a product provider, some recommendations pay them more than others, and you cannot see which. Fee-only removes the question entirely.
Asset-based, and tiered
Our advisory fee is a percentage of the assets we manage, billed quarterly. The schedule is tiered, so the effective rate declines as a relationship grows. Current figures are in our Form ADV Part 2A.
Households, not accounts
Related accounts are grouped into a single household for fee purposes, including family members in the Generations program. Everyone is billed at the rate the combined total earns.
No commissions, ever
No trail commissions, no revenue sharing, no soft dollars from product providers, no proprietary products. Nothing we recommend earns us more than the alternative we didn't recommend.
What fiduciary means here
A standard, not a slogan.
As an SEC-registered investment adviser, TradeWinds owes its clients a fiduciary duty: an obligation to act in your best interest, to disclose conflicts of interest, and to seek best execution on your behalf. That obligation applies to the whole relationship, not only at the moment of a recommendation.
In practice it means we tell you when the answer is to do nothing. It means we will say when a 401(k) is better left where it is, even though rolling it over would increase the assets we bill on. And it means the conflicts that do exist, and every firm has some, are written down in our Form ADV rather than left for you to infer.
Fees are also not the only cost you pay. Underlying funds have their own expense ratios, and the custodian may charge transaction fees. We will walk you through the total before you sign anything.
Minimums
What we ask for, depending on how you got here.
Federal employees
Investable assets.
$250,000
Households through our national channel
Investable assets.
$500,000
Workplace plan management
In a 401(k), 403(b), or 457.
$500,000
Family members of existing clients
Waived through the Generations program.
No minimum
Minimums are guidelines rather than gates. If your situation is close, or unusual, ask.