Kenneth Grant Winans is a successful investment management entrepreneur, an award-winning author, astute collector, and an active philanthropist.
Over a long career, he has conducted landmark investment research and designed creative investment strategies while serving as a portfolio manager, investment analyst and financial writer. As one of today’s top technical analyst, he is a regular guest on TV and radio shows nationwide and has had much of his investment research published as headline articles by leading websites, magazines, and newspapers.
He writes a column for Forbes.com, and he can be heard every week on Los Angeles’ most popular news radio station, CBS affiliate KNX/KFWB, in a segment called, “Wednesdays with Winans.”
Inventions, Books and Awards
He pioneered the development of several important investment indexes and technical indicators. In fact, The Winans International Preferred Stock Index (WIPSI) ™ and the Winans International Real Estate Index (WIREI) ™ (patent pending) are considered leading market indices in Wall Street publications and are used by major financial and academic institutions such as Thomson Reuters, Fidelity Investments, and Princeton University.
In 2007, Mr. Winans wrote and published the first book on preferred stocks since the 1930s, Preferreds: Wall Street’s Best-Kept Income Secrets, a winner in the 2007 National Best Book Awards. Nineteen months later, he wrote and published his 2nd book Investment Atlas: Financial Maps to Investment Success. This investment history book reviews 200 years of events and how stocks, bonds and real estate reacted. It was the winner of the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Award’s highly competitive Finance category. In 2010, he wrote and published a third book titled, Preferred Stocks: The Art of Profitable Income Investing, which won the 2011 National Best Book Awards in Investments.
In 2011, he received The Holland Society of New York’s Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement in Finance and History. Founded in 1885 as one of America’s most prestigious historical societies, it has awarded gold medals to legendary figures like Henry Ford, J. Edgar Hoover, Robert Frost, Presidents Hoover, Johnson, and Nixon.
Winans Investments—Capital Management and Research
A true entrepreneur, Mr. Winans left a promising career with Merrill Lynch and started Winans International in 1992 with only 7 clients. He envisioned an advisory practice different from other investment firms. By providing innovative investment solutions, made possible through his proprietary research, he could design individual portfolios to meet the complex needs of each client. Ken’s beliefs runs counter to the impersonal, “one-size-fits-all” asset management approach commonly practiced on Wall Street.
Today, Winans International manages equity and fixed income investments for its international clientele and has won national acclaim for its success. In 2012, WI was among the “Best of Best” financial advisors attending Barron’s Winner’s Circle Top Independent Advisors Summit. In 2011, Winans International won the Small Business Commerce Association’s national “Best of Business” Award. In 2008, Goldline Research ranked Winans International in Forbes Magazine as one of the “10 Most Dependable Investment Advisors.”
Mr. Winans is a Chartered Market Technician (CMT). He was founding President of the San Francisco Chapter of The Market Technician Association. He is also a senior member of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute and has served on several committees for the San Francisco Chapter.
Professional and Education Background
During his pursuit of a Bachelors degree in Business Economics at the University of San Diego, Ken earned his real estate license and worked part-time for California Brokers of San Diego. Later, at EF Hutton & Company, he conducted investment analysis for a 45-year veteran of the investment business. As a graduate student at the University of San Francisco working towards a Masters in Finance, Ken joined the research department of Sutro & Company. After completing his academic studies, one of his former supervisors asked him to become Research Director for the upstart Chicago-based Compass Investment Group. Ken joined Merrill Lynch in 1990 as a registered investment advisor. In 1992, he founded Winans International.
From 1996 to 2001, he also served as adjunct faculty member of the Graduate School of Business at St. Mary’s College of California.
In 2004, the University of San Francisco named him one of its most celebrated graduates in its 157-year history.
The Winans Collections and Philanthropy
The Moon Room
Space Exploration
As life-long space enthusiast, Ken and Debbie Winans have been able to amass one of the largest private collections of U.S., Russian and Soviet space exploration artifacts. These items range from a full size Gemini capsule boilerplate to items carried to the moon on the Apollo missions. As their “moon room” became an increasingly popular attraction for friends and family visiting their home, they were asked to make presentations to local schools.
In 2002, they founded The W Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the public education of the history and future benefits of space exploration through public exhibits of their collection. Many of these items are on permanent display at The Chabot Space & Science Center and The USS Hornet Museum.
In 2011, they established a new museum called, “The Space Station” in Novato, CA.
Display at Museum of American Finance
Financial History
Ken parents also gave him family heirlooms several hundred years old that were financial in nature. The Edison tickertape machine as well as hundreds of stock certificates, real estate deeds, bond indentures (some dating back to the 1600’s) have been obtained throughout his financial career. Many of these items are on permanent display at The Museum of American Finance.
He serves as a trustee for several non-profit organizations such as: The Museum of Finance (New York City), USS Hornet Museum (Alameda), the Society of California Pioneers (San Francisco) and The Holland Society on New York. He served board terms for San Francisco Fleet Week Association, Chabot Space & Science Center and The University of San Francisco Alumni Association.
Personal and Pedigree
Ken and his wife, Debbie, are long-time residents of the San Francisco area. In his spare time, Ken rides motorcycles, scuba dives, plays tennis, and ski races in the U.S. Ski Association’s Masters Program.
Mr. Winans is a direct descendant from one of America’s oldest families. He is a 12th generation American whose Dutch family first arrived and established colonies in New York and New Jersey in the 1600s. The Winans family coat of arms dates back to 900 AD. Several of his ancestors were Founding Fathers and were some of this nation’s first multimillionaires.
His mother’s Swedish family immigrated to California in the 1850s and soon became national leaders in science, architecture, agriculture and business. Ken’s descendants were members of the Swedish Royal Court in the 1800s and have a Swedish nobility family number of 2213.