4 ms·

> Still have questions? The button below this doesn't seem to work. > If you have more than $100k, you get a human advisor who charges 1-1.5% annually to... b

by itake 1y ago

> Still have questions? The button below this doesn't seem to work. > If you have more than $100k, you get a human advisor who charges 1-1.5% annually to... basically do the same thing with a smile and calming voice attached. Maybe the crackpot scam ones. But I'm very happy with Vanguard's 0.15% or Schwab's 0.8% fee. I also personally am paying someone to tell me "no." I like the friction making changes to my portfolio and I like the trust I have with my advisor. The website says a lot of surface level, "X, Y, and Z doesn't do these things well, but we do it better!" without actually explaining how you doing it better or what is better. For example, robot advertises allow you to customize your portfolio based on your personal risk appetite. But your website claims they don't allow customizations. I'm guessing you can allow people to be even more specific (focus on income, international, etc) than they offer? But I have no idea why their customization level isn't good enough for me. > Access the same high-quality investment strategies used by the world's top institutions, not just cookie-cutter limited funds. I have no idea what "high-quality investment strategies" actually means. My Financial Advisor uses automatic rebalancing tools and tax loss harvesting tools. Features like "saving for a car" aren't interesting to me.

workworkwork71 1y ago
Great feedback! I'd just argue that even the 0.8% from Schwab is $4,000 on their minimum of $500,000. Where I worked (high networth wealth management at large bank) we had a minimum of 1 million and the starter fee was 1.35% or 13,500 annually. Definitely not a crack pot scam advisor and the portfolio management we did was very similar to what we've built out on this app. We're doing more advanced portfolio construction at the client level then what you're going to get from Schwab and it's $100 a year vs $4000. If the relationship aspect of the advisory channel is important to you, then totally valid and fair point. This platform is aimed at the middle-market of people who aren't financially able to meet those minimums but want a better service then just automated portfolios. > Customization Great point! We would just not consider risk appetite an actual customization. After you've selected your risk, you're placed/bucketed into one of five portfolios that they offer and manage themselves. What we do is factor in the risk appetite of the user plus the goal itself (whether you have a date you want the funds for or the importance of the goal) and then model it against evolving capital market expectations featuring 30+ domestic & global asset classes, constructing the optimal ETF portfolio to meet your return requirement at the lowest risk possible. > Investment strategies Another good point that we need to make more clear. We are modeling these portfolios using an institutional model with a wide range of asset classes and a "glidepath" (target date) structure like the US retirement portfolios. This prioritizes capital accumulation at earlier stages and then de-risks the portfolio gradually to make sure you have the capital you need as you reach your goal. It's a dynamic portfolio that evolves over time.
- motoxpro 1y ago
  Can you give an example? I feel like you didn’t answer any of their questions and I am genuinely curious about what these things mean. “Institutional model”? what does customization mean beyond time and risk? It’s sounding like you you have a bucket of etfs that you call risky (Russel 2000, emerging market) and things that you call safe (bonds, debt, large cap) and depending on my time horizon and risk I start with a certain portfolio and you systematically roll into more “safe” based on my time horizon?
  - workworkwork71 1y ago
    For sure! Let's take a pension fund as an example. When asset managers are looking at getting the returns to meet future obligations they are not simply looking at a simple formula of risk-adjusted returns. What they're actually doing is combining factors such as liquidity, time-horizon, hedging across multiple countries, geographies and (most importantly) asset classes. All of that is to say that they need to be sure that on date "X" they are able to meet forecasted obligation "Y". That's the approach we've taken here. Pooling capital market expectations for 30+ global asset classes and taking into consideration the risk basis, time horizon, the financial goal (ie. is this a general wealth building portfolio or your retirement fund) and then yes, creating rules & heuristics around the type of asset classes that are appropriate for that unique situation. Then as the portfolio ages and your "path" matures (we use a glidepath structure to maintain a volatility cap over the lifetime of the portfolio), the portfolio dynamically adjusts the risk downwards and into a less volatile portfolio that favors capital preservation over accumulation. All that is done through publicly traded ETFs that represent the asset classes but it's more granular then the way you typed it out. Rather then just being "large cap" it would be "US Large Cap", "ex-US Large Cap", "European Large Cap", "APAC Large Cap", etc. It's not just about risk though, with the most obvious modern example being crypto. Most advisors in 2025 are saying 2.5-5% of a portfolio can go into the asset class but does that make sense if you're investing for a down payment on a house in 5 years? You're going to want higher returning assets that are less volatile like infrastructure equity or private credit (same return profile, less volatile). The net result is far greater risk adjusted returns and likelihood of actually achieving your financial goals because you've built your overall portfolio piece by piece with the goals as the building blocks.

by itake 1y ago

workworkwork71 1y ago

Great feedback! I'd just argue that even the 0.8% from Schwab is $4,000 on their minimum of $500,000. Where I worked (high networth wealth management at large bank) we had a minimum of 1 million and the starter fee was 1.35% or 13,500 annually. Definitely not a crack pot scam advisor and the portfolio management we did was very similar to what we've built out on this app. We're doing more advanced portfolio construction at the client level then what you're going to get from Schwab and it's $100 a year vs $4000. If the relationship aspect of the advisory channel is important to you, then totally valid and fair point. This platform is aimed at the middle-market of people who aren't financially able to meet those minimums but want a better service then just automated portfolios. > Customization Great point! We would just not consider risk appetite an actual customization. After you've selected your risk, you're placed/bucketed into one of five portfolios that they offer and manage themselves. What we do is factor in the risk appetite of the user plus the goal itself (whether you have a date you want the funds for or the importance of the goal) and then model it against evolving capital market expectations featuring 30+ domestic & global asset classes, constructing the optimal ETF portfolio to meet your return requirement at the lowest risk possible. > Investment strategies Another good point that we need to make more clear. We are modeling these portfolios using an institutional model with a wide range of asset classes and a "glidepath" (target date) structure like the US retirement portfolios. This prioritizes capital accumulation at earlier stages and then de-risks the portfolio gradually to make sure you have the capital you need as you reach your goal. It's a dynamic portfolio that evolves over time.

motoxpro 1y ago
Can you give an example? I feel like you didn’t answer any of their questions and I am genuinely curious about what these things mean. “Institutional model”? what does customization mean beyond time and risk? It’s sounding like you you have a bucket of etfs that you call risky (Russel 2000, emerging market) and things that you call safe (bonds, debt, large cap) and depending on my time horizon and risk I start with a certain portfolio and you systematically roll into more “safe” based on my time horizon?
- workworkwork71 1y ago
  For sure! Let's take a pension fund as an example. When asset managers are looking at getting the returns to meet future obligations they are not simply looking at a simple formula of risk-adjusted returns. What they're actually doing is combining factors such as liquidity, time-horizon, hedging across multiple countries, geographies and (most importantly) asset classes. All of that is to say that they need to be sure that on date "X" they are able to meet forecasted obligation "Y". That's the approach we've taken here. Pooling capital market expectations for 30+ global asset classes and taking into consideration the risk basis, time horizon, the financial goal (ie. is this a general wealth building portfolio or your retirement fund) and then yes, creating rules & heuristics around the type of asset classes that are appropriate for that unique situation. Then as the portfolio ages and your "path" matures (we use a glidepath structure to maintain a volatility cap over the lifetime of the portfolio), the portfolio dynamically adjusts the risk downwards and into a less volatile portfolio that favors capital preservation over accumulation. All that is done through publicly traded ETFs that represent the asset classes but it's more granular then the way you typed it out. Rather then just being "large cap" it would be "US Large Cap", "ex-US Large Cap", "European Large Cap", "APAC Large Cap", etc. It's not just about risk though, with the most obvious modern example being crypto. Most advisors in 2025 are saying 2.5-5% of a portfolio can go into the asset class but does that make sense if you're investing for a down payment on a house in 5 years? You're going to want higher returning assets that are less volatile like infrastructure equity or private credit (same return profile, less volatile). The net result is far greater risk adjusted returns and likelihood of actually achieving your financial goals because you've built your overall portfolio piece by piece with the goals as the building blocks.