Private wealth · $1M+
TradeWinds runs rules-based strategies designed to participate in growth while actively managing exposure when conditions deteriorate. Quantitative, documented, and built by a physicist who does not believe hope is a risk control.
Why people move
There is nothing wrong with a static allocation when you have thirty years to recover. The problem is that most firms hold the same allocation for a forty-year-old and a sixty-three-year-old, then describe the difference as a bond percentage. Meanwhile the actual risk, a deep drawdown in the first few years of withdrawals, goes unmanaged.
The approach
A strategy you cannot describe precisely is a strategy nobody can evaluate, including the person running it.
Each strategy defines in advance what reduces exposure and what restores it. Nobody is deciding in the middle of a bad month whether this one is different. The signals are quantitative and the process is repeatable.
Reducing exposure does not mean going to cash and waiting for a feeling. Strategies are designed to step down and step back up across a defined range, so re-entry is part of the rule rather than a separate act of courage.
We will walk you through what each strategy is designed to do, the conditions it is built for, and where it is likely to lag. An approach that only sounds good when it is working was never explained honestly.
Where this comes from
Christian D'Urso holds a master's degree in physics from the University of Washington and has advised clients since 2007. He founded TradeWinds to run the kind of process he could not find elsewhere: rules written down, tested, and followed whether or not they feel right that week.
The lineup
Each has its own objective and its own intended range of market exposure. Portfolios are built by combining them to fit what a household actually needs.
The broad core holding.
A broadly diversified, growth-oriented core built with ETFs. It holds a strategic asset allocation and retains the flexibility to over- or under-weight asset classes as conditions warrant.
Exchange-traded funds
Growth with environmental and social screens.
ETF-based growth investing that applies environmental, social, and governance considerations, with the ability to take tactical positions in wind, solar, water, and clean technology.
Exchange-traded funds
Higher conviction, fewer positions.
A more focused growth approach built with individual equities rather than funds, for a concentrated expression of the research.
Individual equities
Follows market leadership as it moves.
Rotates dynamically across market segments to pursue areas showing leadership, rather than holding fixed weights through every regime.
Mutual funds
Trend signals plus tactical risk controls.
Combines sector and style rotation with technical trend signals and tactical risk controls. Can include commodity exposure when the signals support it.
Exchange-traded funds
Income first, with downside controls.
Seeks income and some capital appreciation by investing in higher-yielding segments of the market, managing downside exposure through dynamic stop-losses.
Mutual funds
Strategy descriptions state investment objectives and the process used to pursue them. They are not predictions and not guarantees. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. No strategy assures a profit or protects against loss in a declining market, and diversification does not eliminate the risk of loss.
Beyond the portfolio
Every relationship runs through the Retirement Navigation System: three levers, nine accelerators, and a scorecard you fill in yourself. It is how we make sure the tax planning, the income strategy, and the estate documents get the same attention as the portfolio.
Which accounts fund which years, and what each withdrawal costs in tax.
Modeled against future brackets and required distributions, not done by reflex.
Diversifying a single large holding without ignoring the tax bill it creates.
Documents, titling, and beneficiary alignment, coordinated with your attorney.
Giving arranged so the deduction and the gift both land where you intend.
The readiness assessment · free · 3 minutes
This is the same calibration we walk through with prospective clients. Nine questions, one to ten, across every part of a retirement plan. Nobody scores green on all nine — the useful part is finding out which of the reds you did not know about.
Your score, free
All 9 accelerators scored and color-coded the moment you finish. No email needed to see it.
The written breakdown
What each score actually implies and the order to work through them, in exchange for a name and an email.
Then a conversation, if you want one
Bring the scorecard. An advisor will have seen it before you sit down.
Next step
We will tell you what it is designed to do, where its risk actually sits, and what we would do differently. If the answer is nothing, that is a fine outcome and it costs you one meeting.
TradeWinds asks for $500,000 in investable assets on this path. Federal employees and family members of existing clients have different minimums.
