Financial Engines (formerly The Mutual Fund Store)
Reviews and Complaints

After reading previous posts - I would blame the markets on losses rather than the advisor. With that said... I am not a huge proponent of The Mutual Fund Store program and concept.
I appreciate the marketing scheme that Bold has come up with. He is filling a niche that most large investment company Advisors don't want to deal with, and that's the $25k- 50k+ investor. The Mutual Fund Store is essentially a franchise, whereby Adam Bold buys local radio time to do his 1/2 hour weekly show - then they purchase commercial time during the week to drive people to their radio show, and eventually their stores. A local rep buys the franchise, and benefits from the pipeline of smaller investors that the radio show creates.
The MFS concept works on a set system, and they use essentially the same platform for all investors. The Reps (advisors) aren't even licensed to sell individual securities (stocks), nor can they sell individual bonds. They are locked into funds that are recommended by Bold and his crew. They create portfolios with a mix of funds - charge a fee to 'manage the funds' and they generally don't talk too much about the fact that each fund has internal expenses. Unless the investor is very savvy, they don't know to ask about expense ratios, which will give them ability to actually compare fees fairly.
They generally trade through Schwab.
All-in-all, they run everyone through a program, without much customization. This keeps it simple and easy to manage for the advisor, but not always in the best interest of the client. TMFS isn't 'bad' so-to-speak, so if you're just starting out as an investor, you will probably be fine with them. If I had any wealth -whether in the markets or elsewhere- and if I needed any real financial planning risk management, etc - I would find a better-equipped, more experienced advisory firm.

These folks are bad apples ... they have limited ideas and depend upon people's "faith" in their investment insights, which are little more than retrospective performance with little forward thinking.
Run, do not walk from the Mutual Fund Store! I lost 18% minimum total value on six figures over 4 years, while my own stock investments I manage gained 12% year on year for the period ... beware the lure of skilled managers of managers! They do not exist - they are "skimmers" of fees only!

The financial engines show is now just one long commercial. Now its Sell Sell Sell the services. Hey Financial engines, if you want to stop losing listeners… have at least one minute of facts that average people can use for retirement. The show misses the basic idea, that if you have more listener you would automatically have more potential customers.

Former Listener,
Mario M.
Holland Michigan

Very helpful. Question... What if you had an investment advisor that provides comprehensive advice.. is willing to be your on call financial advisor for all of your issues, including providing strategies around buying houses, buying cars, looking for a job, analyzing all you current life, di, company benefits and investments and provides reviews and strategies on all of those... including getting to know you and your families future wishes.. and mapping out strategies to make them happen. What if that advisor was a Certified Financial Planner(TM) practitioner.. and an Accredited Wealth Management Advisor. What if that advisor asked you about your life's goals.. and your life's wishes for your children and grandchildren and worked with you to make sure you did not run out of money and developed strategies designed to keep you from having to sell assets while they were down as you needed cash. What if this advisor did all of that for a maximum of 1.5% of all fees and expenses of the money under management with them(minimum $1, 000 fee).. providing advice on all your holdings elsewhere.. including your 401K. If any of the investments carry fees, they are part of the 1.5% total. If you could hire such a financial expert, would you? Ken Rapp

I've got to say Thank-You to all of you who have shown me what I was to blind to see...If it sounds to good to be true, well we all know where that one goes. So I'm going back to what I already knew, if ya wanna make some good doughnuts, you be the one that handles the dough.

Capt. Queeg, Sir, I do believe you've hit it right on the head!

sweet! write up. GO VANGUARD AND DO IT YOURSELF! BOLD IS A SHARK!

I put my retirement accounts under the management of Mutual Fund Store in July, 2008. As of July, 2012, my total internal net rate of return over 4 years, after fees, is -- get this -- 3.2%! Their management fees were twice as much as my investment gain. I would have been as well off with CDs and slept much better at night. Stay away from Mutual Fund Store. At best, they are incompetent advisors.

Mutual Fund Store is a joke. I have, soon to be had, account with them. They had close to 30% of my money in the Leuthold Asset Allocation fund. Now I see two things very, very wrong with that. First they say no more than 15% in one fund. But I had four different accounts and that fund was the biggest holding in every one of them, so for my whole portfolio it was 30%. Next, why am I paying someone to buy a freaking BALANCED fund?!? Lastly, I did a scan of balanced funds available at Schwab that are no load and no fee, and there were 81 of them. Guess what, the 3 year return of Leuthold Asset Allocation Fund was DEAD LAST! It's had ZERO return for the last 3 years. But I've paid a fee of about 1.3%, so that means I've actually LOST money in a category where 80 out of 81 funds options made money. This place is horrible, and my advisor had absolutely NO explantion for it other than to shrug it off as bad luck.

I went in to one of these franchises and gave them a statement. I presented them a brokerage portfolio of mine of about $112k that was held at Schwab that included some of the low cost Schwab index ETF's, a few low cost Vanguard Funds in both the stock (domestic and intl) and bond category, and one precious metals ETF. The cost of this portfolio were less than .35% annually. The five year return was 6.8%, net of fees. The portfolio put together by the rep at the store was composed entirely of managed funds with an average expense of 1.28%. MFS would be charging me 1.5% so my total expenses would increase to 2.78%. That means I would go from paying about $350 in fees to $2, 780 in fees each year to use their service. That is an increase in fees of 695%! Lastly, the portfolio they put together had a five year return of 2.8% based on their own material, they also told me it was calculated net of fees. However, when I did the math, it appeared to me that it only covered the actual funds fees and did not include the MFS fees. When I questioned this, the advisor became a bit flustered and said his program should be set to include their fees but he would need time to check it and would call me back, to which he never did. I think he realized from all my deep questions that I was not a candidate to be a client and the portfolio was too small to merit his time.

The guy actually explained away the fact that my portfolio performed significantly better based soley on the inclusion of 10% allocated to the precious metals ETF in my portfolio and that MFS does not have precious metals in that large of allocation, so he said it was not an apples to apples comparison. He also told me that indexing was a decent strategy if I only wanted to do as well an index, but their service would allow me the opportunity to outperform indexes. Even though their historical 5 year returns had underperformed he continued to labor on this point and explained the last 5 years to be an "unusual time for the markets" that is unlikely to occur in the next decade.

Draw your own conclusions. What I saw was high fees, lagging performance, and narrow arguments to support their advice that paying more money in fees would generate greater returns.

For anyone stupid enough to pay roughly 3% per year in fees for Bold's services, consider you can now put together a completely diversified portfolio using Schwab ETF's, and pay $0 commission, and the management fees are only .10% for Schwab's ETF's. Now, Bold will argue, but you don't get "professional management" choosing the best stocks. Blah, blah, blah. All the statisitics in the world prove that 90% of managed mutual funds never beat their index. So that means out of every 10 funds Bold picks out of the hat, ONE might actually beat its index, and that could only be by a fraction. Only a fool would pay Bold and his managed mutual funds their ridiculous fees to get subpar returns. Never mind his crappy advice as suggested above.

Swissmath. You are clearly not a mathematician. What I said was to factor in the mutual fund store fees and the taxation. Yes the fund has about a 3% 10 year trail as of 8/2/11. But if you held that fund over the last 10 years, no doubt during some of those years you've paid capital gains tax on the distributions. Owning the fund by itself and ignoring taxes, you've had a return of 3% per year, assuming you bought on the exact day 10 years ago, have not put anymore in and haven't taken anything out. If you reinvested your dividends and cap gains, you could very well be negative, given most distributions are made in December, which, for seasonal and behavioral reasons markets tend to be at their yearly peaks (Wall Street does a great job of "painting the tape" at year end to suck more fools in).

The Bottom line is there is no rationale argument that can be made for paying a service like Mutual Fund Store to have your money in a stock fund that has been regarded as a closet index fund, to get 1.5% return (after TMFS fees). You've taken a boatload in risk, and have done worse than if you had your money in CD's.

@Bucephalus: not sure where you get your numbers. The 10 yr trail on Select American is 3.55% and Hodges is ranked in the top 11% on a 1o year basis. these are from Morningstar as of 5/31/2011. not sure I like or dislike Mutual Fund Store, but you seem to be providing incorrect statements.

I think 10 years is long enough to see if something works or doesn't work. So let us consider money invested with the Mutual Fund Store. Bold has been recommending the Selected American Fund for 10 years or more. Over the last 10 years, if you had your money with MFS and he had some of it in Selected American you have a return of ZERO (the fund had a return of 1.48%, then you subtract MFS fees. Now your REAL return is going to be negative, because this fund no doubt was doing some trading and incurring capital gains in some of those years. You have to pay taxes on those gains. Then you must consider inflation, probably close to 4% or more over the last 10 years. So you have a real return of probably close to negative 7%. AND you had to suffer through an agonizing 40% decline in 2008. The Mutual Fund Store works fine, if you are just collecting fees, like the company. But if you are looking for a return on your investment, you have way too many hurdles to overcome to come out ahead on this deal. I think its humerous how he blasts the funds people call in with by saying that "fund is in the bottom 25% of all funds for the last 3 years." But then he turns around and recommends the Hodges Fund, and has been recommending it. Well this fund is in the BOTTOM 5% of funds in its catecory for the last 1, 3 and 5 year time period. Bold is such a hypocrite. He hates everything that he doesn't recommend and defends everything he does like with stupid arguments.

A sociopath is characterized by the deficit of social emotions such as love, guilt, shame or remorse. According to the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the sociopath lacks "a sense of moral responsibility and social conscience." Sociopaths often scheme to manipulate others without regard to consequences of inflicting harm. It is the cold-hearted way the sociopath reacts to his victims that illustrates his lack of moral compass and detachment from other human beings.
Observe the person in his day-to-day life to assess her interactions with others. Sociopaths may be charming, but their actions are calculated to manipulate others. Common behaviors include scams, fraud and deception and may include feigned emotions to appeal to the victim's emotions.
Watch for indications that the individual pursues anything they want at the expense of others. According to Austin Peay State University, the sociopath's life revolves around meeting his own needs without regards to others.
Verify stories and information provided by the suspected sociopath. Sociopaths typically concoct elaborate backgrounds, inflate their worth and experience and simply lie to convince others to give them what they want.
Look for lack of expression of guilt or remorse for wrongful actions towards others. Lack of emotion and failure to express remorse typically signals sociopathic tendencies.

Once you punt Mutual Fund Store off your accounts at Schwab, all kind of portfolio planning and analysis tools become available for you. You can easily set your allocations and rebalance it yourself without paying the high fees for someone else to do it. Unless a person is completely illiterate when it comes to investing, using Schwab's plethora of tools is a no-brainer in my humble opinion. You won't be able to see any of the Schwab tools as long as you are hooked up to Mutual Fund Store, however. So in a way they keep you in the dark!

Dear weaned on a pickle,
Why are you so sour on paying for a service. If you don't want the service, don't pay for it! Sounds like you placed your money with them, you were unhappy with the results, and now it's everyone else who is at fault.
If you entered into an agreement with them, did you read the paperwork first? If wrap fees were fraudulent they would not be allowed. Don't most of the largest accounts in the world have their money managed in some sort of wrap account? Yes they do. Forbes sells advertising not investment advice, read their disclaimer about investment advice they give. Life is too short to complain, let it go.

Heard their fill in radio person, Scott Capace, say he did not care about paying 10x more in fees for a managed mutual fund. Then he made the amazingly stupid statement of "I will always choose a fund with higher fees, more risk, and less return". Yep. This guy actually said that when he was presented with a question about the low-cost Vanguard Funds. He must have been so flustered that he made this truly freudian slip. His unconscious mind knows exactly that he is selecting higher fees, higher risk and providing lower returns to the people that listen to him. Then he suggested that Vanguard only offers index funds. He instantly cut this guy off AND he did not answer the man's question which was about the Mutual Fund Store charging fees ON TOP of what the more expensive mutual funds that they so like to drum on and on about.

Do the math. If you consider the fund fees plus the MFS fees, you have close to 3% in management fees you are paying to someone else to handle your money for you. On a 100k portfolio that means you will pay $16000 in fees in 5 years! That is INSANITY!

Fees are insane already with mutual funds. The real pain is when you add the fees of the Mutual Fund Store. Consider that over a 30-year period, an increase of just 1 percent in fees can reduce a nest egg by 20 percent. The only reason this company exists is that their customers really have no idea just how much they are really paying. The advisors are like leeches, slowly sucking the blood out of unsuspecting people's accounts, day after day.

I had similar experience. My advisor seemed to not know very much about the funds, and kept deferring my questions by saying they have an in-house research group that handles the picking of the funds and his role is to allocate my portfolio. I feel kind of stupid for falling for his sales pitch and not doing the math to really see how much this was costing me. The service is VERY expensive for what they do. My returns were horrible.

Bold says frequently that he sorts through "27, 000 mutual funds and includes ETF's" to consider for his clients. This is BS. All his client accounts are custodied at Charles Schwab. If you check Schwab's website, they only offer about 2, 000 funds via their no-load, no transaction fee schedule. Bold's Select List come's from this group. If you do a simple screen using the Schwab Fund Screener to include from this group, Morningstar ratings of 3, 4 or 5, you are down to 950 funds. Screen out for manager tenure of at least 5 years, you are down to 550. Next screen out funds with expense ratios above 1.5% and you are left with just 275 activley managed funds that make a decent argument that should be included in anyone's portfolio. It doesn't take a genius from there to fill an allocation pie chart. However, I dare say Bold is a marketing genius for making people believe he has some sophisticated methodolgy at fund selection when all he has to do is spend about 15 minutes building his initial screening criteria and then about 2 minutes once or twice a year to see if any funds have fallen out or into the screen. He can't use ETF's because it would be impossible for his advisors to be making trades all day long for clients, so he will never consider their viability. Now for the individual, if you can't learn to use these simple criteria for yourself, then you are just throwing money down the drain. If you aren't considering the use of some ETF's, especially in your taxable accounts, you are wasting money. Ultimately, Bold exists because many people are just too lazy to do a little bit of homework.

I let myself get suckered into Bold's outfit for about a year. I had, what they told me was a "balanced" portfolio of about 65% stock mutual funds and 30% bond mutual funds, the remaining 5% they held as cash of which they could suck out their fees. In my portfolio I had several funds rated 2 or 3 stars by Morningstar, but also had very high expense ratios. They sent me quarterly report, which appeared to be manipulated from quarter to quarter as they changed the indexes they were comparing themselves too. In my view, it appeared they were shopping for ways to make themselves look better. Anyway, my returns were simply, at best, just tracking indexes, and in a couple quarters did worse than indexes. I recieved ONE phone call from the advisor during the year, who basically just said "your portfolio remains balanced". I wanted to know why I should keep paying these fees to get index like returns, to which he had no reply other than "you need to be patient". I considered this to be saying, you just need to leave your money with Mutual Fund Store longer, so we can drain more fees out. Anyway, I called Schwab and removed them and have since been using a mixture of Schwab Mutual Funds and ETF's all with EXTREMELY low managment fees. They have a "portfolio analysis tab" which tells you what percentages you have of each asset class and if you are out of alignment for FREE. I am saving roughly $3, 500 annualy in fees that would have gone to Mutual Fund Store and my returns are still right in line with the indexes. There is no commission to buy or sell Schwab ETF's or funds so it makes it a very cost effective way to build a balanced portfolio for no cost. 2 weeks in a row I called the Mutual Fund Show, and told the call screener I wanted Bold to address Schwab's low cost mutual funds, and ETF's in comparison to his service. Each time I waited on hold for about 30 minutes and then was told they had too many callers and would have to call back again. I took this to mean Bold does not want this question asked on air.

Bold and Mutual Fund Store advisors only tell you to do one thing, and that is buy, buy, buy. They will never tell you to sell. A simpleton can buy, the hard part is identifying when to sell. Why pay money to have someone do the easy part? They need you to stay invested in their funds so that they keep getting paid. So, while he says they have no conflict of interest in the funds they put you in, this is simply not true. They need you to stay fully invested at all times so they can keep sucking fees out of your account.

Dear dcLarry182

I agree everyone should be able to back up what they say...

Please post your 2010 tax return to back up you claims.

Thanks

I got hosed with Mutual Fund Store and here is how. I had been with them for about a year. I had a financial hardship and I had to sell all my funds due to this event. Well guess what, they had apparently put me into a bunch of different funds from what I started out with, without bothering to tell me or ask me if my situation was any different. So when I called them to sell they said most of my new funds had 90 day hold periods or else I would get hit with a 2% early redemption fee. I had no choice but to eat it and to top it off they wanted me to pay them their fees on top of that! I think they must rotate people into new funds just to get that 90 day hook into people hoping they will stay for another 90 days.

Bold tries to convince the more ignorant financial consumer that he has some secret methodolgy to identify mutual fund managers. If you are going to let this company invest your money, and pay them a lot in fees to do that, you should demand that theyprovide you with a list of EVERY mutual fund they have EVER recommended, when it was added to their recommended list and when it was removed. If they won't, can't or don't provide this to you, I would suggest walking out the door. You must be willing to do some follow-up yourself and see how these funds performed a couple years prior to be adding, while they were on his list, and the timing of his removal. Most of this research you can do on Morningstar.com. If you don't know how to do this kind of research, get a second opinion from another advisor. You have to cross-check all of these advisors against one another anyway.

I had to chuckle about your post dclarry. I think I heard your call and it was funny. Bold has no defense against ETF's, because they are so cost effecient compared to his fee laden structure. It also takes away another one of his HUGE dodges, and that is transparency. With an ETF you can actually see what you are buying and how it's positioned when you buy it. This enables a more "intelligent" investor to study what he is actually buying. With his managed mutual funds, he can disregard what's in the fund and just say he relys on the manager to make all the decisions, thus relieving him of having to do any actual market evaluation. The only thing he does is look at PAST performance which is ###ed. Basically, people are paying him to do absolutely nothing, but invest and hope. Which is the exact same thing they could do with out his allocation service and fee. Also another example of the stupidity of MFS system is they claim to be a "allocation" service, but half the funds he talks about are allocation funds! So his clients are actually paying him to allocate their portfolio by him using allocation funds.

I expressed an interest in the Mutual Fund Store through one of its on-line forms and received a call back two days later. I was unable to talk at that time and said I would call back within an hour. The representative did not identify himself and did not leave a phone number. He simply hung up! With "idiots" like this soliciting business, it's amazing The Mutual Fund Store is still in business.. Then I found this web site. Needless to say, I now want nothing to do with The Mutual Fund Store. Their operation reminds me of a bucket shop. STAY AWAY.

I've got an appointment with The Mutual Fund Store and I have to admit there is an overwhelming number of unhappy investors and then there's this.

http://www.bbb.org/indy/business-reviews/investment-advisory-service/the-mutual-fund-store-in-indianapolis-in-32001842/

I really hope my search shows up in the above link because shows no complaints filed with the BBB from anybody ever? How does that happen? I have anybody who has an explanation for this phenomenon to answer with an explanation.

Adam Bold says they use "special" algorithms to manage money. I suggest you run away from any money manager who uses the phrase "special algorithims". AIG was using special algorithims as was Long Term Capital Management, as was Lehman Brothers, as was Bear Stearns. Need I say more?

The radio show they have is an hour long infomercial. They should be on in the middle of the night with the Sham-Wow's of the world. Nothing useful about this program. Don't waste your time.

Thank you, Conejos. The previous poster missed my point entirely. When I'm investing a large, 6 figure, amount and am promised personal quarterly contact, that is exactly what I expect. I'm happy that I fired the MFS and started seeing a real advisor.

My comments are based on his radio show. I am not a client and will never be in the future of the MFS.. I am a fan of Vanguard where we have invested for decades. First Bold hates target date funds because every investor is different. Does he think people are too stupid to look under the hood and pick the one matching their desired allocation rather than go by target year. He does not like them because no one company has a lock on the best funds. Does that matter if the sub funds are all index funds as is the case with Vanguard. Folks that get paid by assets under management do often have conflicts in interest. You will never hear Bold recommend paying down a mortgage when someone calls with a new found windfall. No money for him in doing that. His Smart 401K company is very flawed. Advisers always say look at your asset allocation as a whole, not by individual accounts. How in the world can Bold make recommendations in a 401K without considering IRAs and taxable accounts. My advice for MFS clients is run to Vanguard, Fidelity or T Rowe Price as fast as you can.

...look, this is a commission hustling business..they get suckers called clients to fork over fees and commissions fort trash investments...just go to Vanguard, no commission hustling, low low low fees, most people find out too late their "advisor" is just a weasel that sucked commissions out of them

...these guys, like any hustler salesman, if in the business of commission hustling...the suckers they call "clients" are the dupes who fatten their pockets...buy Vanguard, low low low fees, and no fee or commission hustling, no pitches to get your money into their pockets...anymore a client is no more than a sucker...

I noticed that these complaints were made in 2009, after the 2008 down turn. I have been with The Mutual Fund Store for over three years and have averaged, after the fees, 12% net. Having talked to financial planners regarding fees, their 1.5%/year is reasonable. My wife is a secretary for a financial planning company, and the stories I hear about commissions, fees, annuities, are nuts. I trust the adviser, I can look at my account thru Schwab everyday, and I am happy with the results.

Brian at the French Creek Store in Avon Lake, Ohio took our $75 K and seven years later it was down to $74, 200.00.I immediately got it out and switched it over to Vanguard where the fees are much lower and it appears the investors are more in tune with the markets.I too got suckered in by that Adam Bold show on Saturday Morning.Serves me right for trusting this snake oil salesman.