Based on my personal experience of almost 4 yrs, I cannot un-recommend CP more strongly. As with large institutions generally, YMMV. Personally, if I hadn't gone with CP, and continued on my pre-CP trajectory, I would be worth over 2.5x what I'm worth today (if you think that's an exaggeration, it's not -- outside of my IRA and Roth IRA, I came to them with over 90% of my assets in 2 stocks, both of which have jointly over 3x'd over that period). That by itself is no reason for such a negative review -- that's just the breaks. So why am I leaving this truly negative review?
I hired CP so I wouldn't have to think about my finances. I paid more attention the first year (of course), after which I ignored them. I started paying attention halfway through this pandemic, when I realized that even though QQQ (not one of my prior positions) was through the roof, my account had stayed flat. The stocks/funds they'd picked for me had done so poorly that the vast gains in what as left of my prior positions only just offset the equally enormous losses of their picks on my behalf.
At that point, I called and had a talk. My questions were not why my overall portfolio hadn't done as well as my prior undiversified positions, but why it was doing so poorly when high tech was through the roof. I was polite -- in retrospect too polite at the expense of clarity, and they are VERY VERY good at talking, if not at portfolio management. The upshot is I took control of 1/2 of my assets then under management, and left them with the remainder (and they recommended moving away further from my profitable positions, which I am glad I did not do).
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I reviewed again and realized that while my assets under management had seen a slight gain, it was still considerably underperforming QQQ (which I consider a reasonable baseline, as opposed to my prior enormous position in GOOGL). At that point, I decided very politely to terminate our relationship. There were probably some issues with their automated meeting reply systems, for which I did not blame them, but they blamed me. Then, the kicker: instead of transferring my managed assets back to my prior accounts (as was done last year), they merely de-linked my accounts -- so that neither they nor I had access. They didn't even send an email that it was done -- I had to email them and ask where the assets were, i.e., if I'd just logged in at a bad time when assets were stuck in between. They told me that's not how de-linking works, that they no longer have access to my account and referred to my brokerage's 1-800 number. (Btw, my bokerage was lovely and very helpful in restoring access to my accounts, although it's a bit of a process).
Of course the state of my finances has the most impact on my life, not the administrative hassle of restoring access. However, that piece is simply unequivocally unprofessional. As for underperforming the market -- well, I guess it's true what they say about monkeys and professional investors, at least in my case. The monkey would have been cheaper, easier, and overall a far more rewarding experience.
YMMV. Mine, unfortunately, it what it is.
Best of luck to you in your financial journey. read more
