12 ms·

Double is winding down

61 points by NetOpWibby 1y ago

bckmn 1y ago
Previously (launch): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42377018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42377018
- 3D30497420 1y ago
  Only 6 months ago? Oof.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    Most startups fail, and you should be so lucky as to have one fail quickly and decisively. It's like landing on Free Parking in Monopoly.
    - apgwoz 1y ago
      > It's like landing on Free Parking in Monopoly. I have no clue what you’re trying to convey with this analogy? “Free Parking” is different in virtually every household.
      - tptacek 1y ago
        I was not thinking about random house rules in the analogy.
        toast0 1y ago
        Standard rules free parking is a no-op; you get nothing and pay nothing. It just prolongs the inevitable.
        tptacek 1y ago
        Yes, that's what I was referring to.
        apgwoz 1y ago
        But then this analogy doesn’t hold… Has there ever been a startup in history where it’s break even everywhere? Investors don’t get their money back, customers (hopefully!) are made whole, and the founders and employees are now out of a job and _perhaps_ didn’t get their final pay check depending on how bad it is.
        tptacek 1y ago
        Yeah, you're missing my point. Given most startups fail, the question isn't "at the end of the day do you still get a paycheck for your failed startup", it's "how much of your life did you burn on that failed startup". Since we're talking about a specific startup whose founders are participants here, I think we can do without the ghoulish stuff about them not making payroll or whatever; "winding down" implies they're failing in an orderly way.
        apgwoz 1y ago
        I got your point (after the Free Parking clarification). (To be clear, my comment wasn’t on Double specifically. No clue how strapped for cash they are while winding down. They seem to be doing right be people (paying fees and such), and that’s great.) Finally, maybe it’s unintentional, but you seem to be implying that “it’s not worth burning your life on a failed startup,” which seems like a bad take. If you spend 5 years on a startup that shows promise but ultimately doesn’t pan out, is that always worse than spending 6 months on a startup that fails fast? First, this would be wildly hard to prove, and second, there are obviously counter examples.
        tptacek 1y ago
        Yes. If you spend 5 years on a promising startup that fails, that is strictly worse than spending 6 months on a promising startup that fails.
- axus 1y ago
  I like that they had already written their "destructor function": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42379135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42379135
  - ezekg 1y ago
    > You can initiate a cash withdrawal or transfer your assets to another brokerage. We ask that you do this by July 31, 2025. Seems to still require manual work, though? With less than 30 days to do so...
  - sethhochberg 1y ago
    When you work with Apex (or really any other technology bridge to the traditional financial world, Q2's Helix is common for traditional banking, Apex Clearing is common for stock trading, etc) they require you think about things like this during your implementation. Its not quite as turnkey as something like opening a Stripe account; your implementation will need to demonstrably pass a playbook of tests before your partner will allow you to play in real financial transactions - and those tests typically include things like account closure or program shutdown. Basically, the traditional financial services partners who give startups access to these legacy networks know their clients are startups who might not fully understand the space or might want to cut corners. They're good at making sure they're protected against their clients' behavior, and in most cases legally the end users are actually the customer of the financial services company, the startup will be considered a "deposit broker" instead of a "bank" etc. Its been longer since I've touched the stock broker side so I'm fuzzy on the specific terminology but its similar there.
    - NetOpWibby 1y ago
      You've told me enough to let me know I don't wanna do this. Traditional finance is secure for a reason! Good they have strong requirements.
jjice 1y ago
Good to see that they at least gave some instructions on moving the money (it was the absolute minimum, to be fair). No hate to them - some business don't work out. That said, I personally don't understand keeping my assets that I hope to retire off of someday at a startup style company. Everyone's gotta start somewhere, but financial services like this are probably a hard sell for a lot of people.
- citizenpaul 1y ago
  Yeah that's what I was thinking. There is 0 benefit to such a product unless the company can guarantee they will be in business for 10-20 years. Otherwise moving my money us just a big time wasting headache if the company shuts down before any benefit is realized. (<1 year... ouch to the users). It seems like a good idea. It is a margin profits play though. I know that in dealing with big money there is a lot of foot guns as far as costs. If you mess up even one thing it can cost you tens or hundreds of thousands in unexpected expenses. No offense to the founders but I'm guessing that they didn't have someone with 20+ years finance experience to make absolutely sure they never stepped on those mistakes. You'd have to operate flawlessly with only margin profits. Hopefully the founders will give us some more context on what happened.
- fragmede 1y ago
  The attraction is easy. Internet company means lower overhead. I'm not paying to go into a lavish office with people in it like with Fidelity, and the money just needs to sit there generating modest returns. It's all numbers on a screen anyway.
  - blitzar 1y ago
    Internet company means a VC is setting a bunch of money on fire and providing you the product at a loss to them - which is your gain. They hope they can buy enough eyeballs to get their exit and the users can move on to the next revolutionary idea to giveaway a bunch of cash.
  - citizenpaul 1y ago
    You completely ignored my argument. If all the product does is give you razor thin better returns than an average low cost retirement. The money you put in would need to be there for several years at miniumum. The company apparently cannot guarantee they will be in business which means you as a customer are assuming huge risk with little potential return value, in something you are supposed to be minimizing risk as a top priority. If you want to take on risk there are much better risk return ratios for your retirement money.
ram_rar 1y ago
I'm curious what led to the lack of demand for this—was it the friction involved in moving brokerage accounts, or do ETFs already meet the needs of most retail investors? A post-mortem on the limited traction would be quite insightful.
- timhigins 1y ago
  Yeah this would be interesting. Also the founders should consider open sourcing some/all of the code. It could be an awesome platform for the open finance community.
  - pinkmuffinere 1y ago
    Reading the post, it sounds like they are > If you are technical, we are open sourcing our optimization engine, Oracle, which does our daily Tax Loss Harvesting and rebalancing. You may be able to use this to set up your own trading bot on Alpaca. You will need to contact Alpaca support to request an ACATS of your current assets held at Double.
    - xur17 1y ago
      Also note: > Note that ETF Holding data, corporate action data, and possibly factor model data would be required to reproduce Double’s Direct Index strategies. Unfortunately this data is not generally free and would require a fair bit of work to get Oracle working. It would be interesting to have an open source direct indexing system with plugins for different brokerages. A CLI tool that provides recommended trades and an option to accept or cancel would be perfect.
- lyrrad 1y ago
  There is financial friction involved. As I understand it, this product involved using fractional shares to try to adhere to an index, while using tax loss harvesting to optimize for tax. Fractional shares cannot be transferred between brokerages and are generally sold when transferring brokerages. If you owned on average, half a share of the largest 250 US companies, you'd may need to sell about $30,000 in shares, which could result in an unexpected tax bill. There are large brokerages and companies offering similar direct indexing products, generally at a higher cost. However, I expect those products are less likely to be shut down.
citizenpaul 1y ago
Sorry to hear. I know you are probably down right now but is there any chance you would be willing to share some details on why things didn't work out? I'd like to learn and I'm sure lots of others on HN would benifit from your experience.
jvanderbot 1y ago
This is the first I'd heard of something like this. What other services are in the area of "Cheap automated portfolio management" that HN might recommend?
- stilldavid 1y ago
  I've been pretty happy with Betterment.
- ajoseps 1y ago
  generally ETFs as a whole and if you want direct indexing like they offered, fidelity has something similar: https://www.fidelity.com/direct-investing/overview https://www.fidelity.com/direct-investing/overview
- khuey 1y ago
  The Target Date Retirement fund from your preferred low cost fund provider (i.e. Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, iShares, etc) is an excellent choice.
  - citizenpaul 1y ago
    >Target Date Retirement fund Every-time I look at those they seem extremely risk adverse for such a long term investment. Sometimes with 50%+ bonds/notes. If you are looking to retire in 5 years sure but I'm guessing most HN are hoping for more than 4% returns on their retirement account 25+ years from now.
    - khuey 1y ago
      Are you looking at ones with retirement dates well into the future? The one Vanguard suggests for people born in 1990 (VFFVX) is 90% equities.
      - citizenpaul 1y ago
        It seems I only looked at 401k options for target-date type which are apparently universally terrible. I never looked at private ones because of this bias.
devy 1y ago
Re: License for https://github.com/doublehq/oracle https://github.com/doublehq/oracle The README.md says it's MIT licensed on the very last line (https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/blob/b69ef4c940217a2fbf5297e767c5067497effb20/README.md?plain=1#L474 https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/blob/b69ef4c940217a2fbf52...). However, LICENCE file (not LICENSE.md file, which doesn't exist, https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/blob/b69ef4c940217a2fbf5297e767c5067497effb20/LICENSE#L1-2 https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/blob/b69ef4c940217a2fbf52...) says it's GPL 3.0 license. Which one is it?
- mdaniel 1y ago
  Seems to be a failure to update the README, since https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/commit/7923eee62bccb565c89a9901d4d0e31c28d9447c https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/commit/7923eee62bccb565c8... was an explicit change away from MIT to GPLv3 That also tracks why the README would be pointing to a 404 file, since the other commit that touched that file was to change its name, and also not update the README
didip 1y ago
Why gave up so soon? I remembered reading this on HN not too long ago.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
xur17 1y ago
Welp, looks like I am moving to Frec. Hoping the Apex -> Apex transfer means I can transfer partial shares. Note for other folks in this situation: you should be able to find a referral link and get a $250 bonus for transferring over.
- amberlyfrec 1y ago
  Frec is here to help! And going to offer a $250 bonus to clients moving over. Double will be sharing the link soon.
  - xur17 1y ago
    A few questions that you might be able to help with (also happy to jump on a call to discuss, you can find my details in my profile): - Transferring - will partial shares be liquidated (since both are part of Apex)? - Can I see my portfolio through Apex Clearing independently (something that Double provided)? - If I want to transfer my assets in in kind, and invest them in the Total US index, how do I ensure that nothing is sold as part of the rebalance during that transfer?
    - amberlyfrec 1y ago
      Absolutely. 1. We also custody with Apex so you'll be able to transfer easily between Frec <> Double and continue to see your assets held independently. 2. We can definitely setup a call to review the individual positions and the evaluate risk of positions being sold to rebalance. You can book a demo here: https://calendly.com/frecdemo/frec-demo https://calendly.com/frecdemo/frec-demo or feel free to email me amberly@frec.com
      - xur17 1y ago
        Thank you. Do you know the answer to the partial shares question?
        amberlyfrec 1y ago
infecto 1y ago
Saw some posts asking why and for postmortems. I am not the founder, not in the retail industry but adjacent space to understand enough of why. 1) there are already competitors in this space that have been there for a decade or longer. Higher fees but not significantly so to counter the risk of doing business with a startup. 2) If you use their calculator is a bit disingenuous, starting balance of $1mm. Those clients exist but that’s the minority. If you bring that number down to a more typical average or median for someone with a 30 year horizon you see that the difference is not material compared to their default assumptions. 3) if you are a high net worth individual where tax low harvesting matters, the product does not feel that compelling.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  Indeed, this is ideally suited as a small team in a brokerage or other asset management firm, marketed to existing high net worth customer relationships either as part of the asset under management fee or some cut of tax savings realized. It is not a sustainable standalone business.
ramesh31 1y ago
SEC is a complete joke at this point. Zero due diligence being done on companies like this, and as always, the consumer is left footing the bill.
amberlyfrec 1y ago
Frec is an option for customers looking for a new low cost direct indexing provider! All assets remain securely held with Apex + Frec has grown to over $300m in assets with continued rapid growth.
- Beijinger 1y ago
  Would you be so kind to elaborate?
  - amberlyfrec 1y ago
    Absolutely - what details are you curious about? I am on the Frec team and happy to provide a demo.
languagehacker 1y ago
Can someone double-check my understanding of this? Double is a portfolio management service that purchases shares that match the blend of a specific index for its customers. So instead of owning an index, you own the shares. Double is winding down because they are not profitable. They are instructing their customers to either fully liquidate their holdings, or perform an ACATS transfer, which generally requires that any fractional holdings be liquidated first. However, the business model will necessarily require holding fractional shares because of the way indexes work. So my question is, this is going to cause many of their customers to get dinged by short-term capital gains tax, right? That stinks.
mizzao 1y ago
I'm a Frec user and have never heard of Double before. Is this likely to happen to them as well?
- amberlyfrec 1y ago
  Frec team here. We're in a very different position and confident we're here for the long haul. We manage over $300 million in assets, have grown 5x year-over-year, and are on a clear path to profitability without needing additional capital. The business is built on sustainable AUM-based fees with strong unit economics.

61 points by NetOpWibby 1y ago

bckmn 1y ago

Previously (launch): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42377018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42377018

3D30497420 1y ago
Only 6 months ago? Oof.
- tptacek 1y ago
  Most startups fail, and you should be so lucky as to have one fail quickly and decisively. It's like landing on Free Parking in Monopoly.
  - apgwoz 1y ago
    > It's like landing on Free Parking in Monopoly. I have no clue what you’re trying to convey with this analogy? “Free Parking” is different in virtually every household.
    - tptacek 1y ago
      I was not thinking about random house rules in the analogy.
      - toast0 1y ago
        Standard rules free parking is a no-op; you get nothing and pay nothing. It just prolongs the inevitable.
        tptacek 1y ago
        Yes, that's what I was referring to.
        apgwoz 1y ago
        But then this analogy doesn’t hold… Has there ever been a startup in history where it’s break even everywhere? Investors don’t get their money back, customers (hopefully!) are made whole, and the founders and employees are now out of a job and _perhaps_ didn’t get their final pay check depending on how bad it is.
        tptacek 1y ago
        Yeah, you're missing my point. Given most startups fail, the question isn't "at the end of the day do you still get a paycheck for your failed startup", it's "how much of your life did you burn on that failed startup". Since we're talking about a specific startup whose founders are participants here, I think we can do without the ghoulish stuff about them not making payroll or whatever; "winding down" implies they're failing in an orderly way.
        apgwoz 1y ago
        I got your point (after the Free Parking clarification). (To be clear, my comment wasn’t on Double specifically. No clue how strapped for cash they are while winding down. They seem to be doing right be people (paying fees and such), and that’s great.) Finally, maybe it’s unintentional, but you seem to be implying that “it’s not worth burning your life on a failed startup,” which seems like a bad take. If you spend 5 years on a startup that shows promise but ultimately doesn’t pan out, is that always worse than spending 6 months on a startup that fails fast? First, this would be wildly hard to prove, and second, there are obviously counter examples.
        tptacek 1y ago
        Yes. If you spend 5 years on a promising startup that fails, that is strictly worse than spending 6 months on a promising startup that fails.
axus 1y ago
I like that they had already written their "destructor function": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42379135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42379135
- ezekg 1y ago
  > You can initiate a cash withdrawal or transfer your assets to another brokerage. We ask that you do this by July 31, 2025. Seems to still require manual work, though? With less than 30 days to do so...
- sethhochberg 1y ago
  When you work with Apex (or really any other technology bridge to the traditional financial world, Q2's Helix is common for traditional banking, Apex Clearing is common for stock trading, etc) they require you think about things like this during your implementation. Its not quite as turnkey as something like opening a Stripe account; your implementation will need to demonstrably pass a playbook of tests before your partner will allow you to play in real financial transactions - and those tests typically include things like account closure or program shutdown. Basically, the traditional financial services partners who give startups access to these legacy networks know their clients are startups who might not fully understand the space or might want to cut corners. They're good at making sure they're protected against their clients' behavior, and in most cases legally the end users are actually the customer of the financial services company, the startup will be considered a "deposit broker" instead of a "bank" etc. Its been longer since I've touched the stock broker side so I'm fuzzy on the specific terminology but its similar there.
  - NetOpWibby 1y ago
    You've told me enough to let me know I don't wanna do this. Traditional finance is secure for a reason! Good they have strong requirements.

jjice 1y ago

Good to see that they at least gave some instructions on moving the money (it was the absolute minimum, to be fair). No hate to them - some business don't work out. That said, I personally don't understand keeping my assets that I hope to retire off of someday at a startup style company. Everyone's gotta start somewhere, but financial services like this are probably a hard sell for a lot of people.

citizenpaul 1y ago
Yeah that's what I was thinking. There is 0 benefit to such a product unless the company can guarantee they will be in business for 10-20 years. Otherwise moving my money us just a big time wasting headache if the company shuts down before any benefit is realized. (<1 year... ouch to the users). It seems like a good idea. It is a margin profits play though. I know that in dealing with big money there is a lot of foot guns as far as costs. If you mess up even one thing it can cost you tens or hundreds of thousands in unexpected expenses. No offense to the founders but I'm guessing that they didn't have someone with 20+ years finance experience to make absolutely sure they never stepped on those mistakes. You'd have to operate flawlessly with only margin profits. Hopefully the founders will give us some more context on what happened.
fragmede 1y ago
The attraction is easy. Internet company means lower overhead. I'm not paying to go into a lavish office with people in it like with Fidelity, and the money just needs to sit there generating modest returns. It's all numbers on a screen anyway.
- blitzar 1y ago
  Internet company means a VC is setting a bunch of money on fire and providing you the product at a loss to them - which is your gain. They hope they can buy enough eyeballs to get their exit and the users can move on to the next revolutionary idea to giveaway a bunch of cash.
- citizenpaul 1y ago
  You completely ignored my argument. If all the product does is give you razor thin better returns than an average low cost retirement. The money you put in would need to be there for several years at miniumum. The company apparently cannot guarantee they will be in business which means you as a customer are assuming huge risk with little potential return value, in something you are supposed to be minimizing risk as a top priority. If you want to take on risk there are much better risk return ratios for your retirement money.

ram_rar 1y ago

I'm curious what led to the lack of demand for this—was it the friction involved in moving brokerage accounts, or do ETFs already meet the needs of most retail investors? A post-mortem on the limited traction would be quite insightful.

timhigins 1y ago
Yeah this would be interesting. Also the founders should consider open sourcing some/all of the code. It could be an awesome platform for the open finance community.
- pinkmuffinere 1y ago
  Reading the post, it sounds like they are > If you are technical, we are open sourcing our optimization engine, Oracle, which does our daily Tax Loss Harvesting and rebalancing. You may be able to use this to set up your own trading bot on Alpaca. You will need to contact Alpaca support to request an ACATS of your current assets held at Double.
  - xur17 1y ago
    Also note: > Note that ETF Holding data, corporate action data, and possibly factor model data would be required to reproduce Double’s Direct Index strategies. Unfortunately this data is not generally free and would require a fair bit of work to get Oracle working. It would be interesting to have an open source direct indexing system with plugins for different brokerages. A CLI tool that provides recommended trades and an option to accept or cancel would be perfect.
lyrrad 1y ago
There is financial friction involved. As I understand it, this product involved using fractional shares to try to adhere to an index, while using tax loss harvesting to optimize for tax. Fractional shares cannot be transferred between brokerages and are generally sold when transferring brokerages. If you owned on average, half a share of the largest 250 US companies, you'd may need to sell about $30,000 in shares, which could result in an unexpected tax bill. There are large brokerages and companies offering similar direct indexing products, generally at a higher cost. However, I expect those products are less likely to be shut down.

citizenpaul 1y ago

Sorry to hear. I know you are probably down right now but is there any chance you would be willing to share some details on why things didn't work out? I'd like to learn and I'm sure lots of others on HN would benifit from your experience.

jvanderbot 1y ago

This is the first I'd heard of something like this. What other services are in the area of "Cheap automated portfolio management" that HN might recommend?

stilldavid 1y ago
I've been pretty happy with Betterment.
ajoseps 1y ago
generally ETFs as a whole and if you want direct indexing like they offered, fidelity has something similar: https://www.fidelity.com/direct-investing/overview https://www.fidelity.com/direct-investing/overview
khuey 1y ago
The Target Date Retirement fund from your preferred low cost fund provider (i.e. Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, iShares, etc) is an excellent choice.
- citizenpaul 1y ago
  >Target Date Retirement fund Every-time I look at those they seem extremely risk adverse for such a long term investment. Sometimes with 50%+ bonds/notes. If you are looking to retire in 5 years sure but I'm guessing most HN are hoping for more than 4% returns on their retirement account 25+ years from now.
  - khuey 1y ago
    Are you looking at ones with retirement dates well into the future? The one Vanguard suggests for people born in 1990 (VFFVX) is 90% equities.
    - citizenpaul 1y ago
      It seems I only looked at 401k options for target-date type which are apparently universally terrible. I never looked at private ones because of this bias.

devy 1y ago

Re: License for https://github.com/doublehq/oracle https://github.com/doublehq/oracle The README.md says it's MIT licensed on the very last line (https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/blob/b69ef4c940217a2fbf5297e767c5067497effb20/README.md?plain=1#L474 https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/blob/b69ef4c940217a2fbf52...). However, LICENCE file (not LICENSE.md file, which doesn't exist, https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/blob/b69ef4c940217a2fbf5297e767c5067497effb20/LICENSE#L1-2 https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/blob/b69ef4c940217a2fbf52...) says it's GPL 3.0 license. Which one is it?

mdaniel 1y ago
Seems to be a failure to update the README, since https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/commit/7923eee62bccb565c89a9901d4d0e31c28d9447c https://github.com/doublehq/oracle/commit/7923eee62bccb565c8... was an explicit change away from MIT to GPLv3 That also tracks why the README would be pointing to a 404 file, since the other commit that touched that file was to change its name, and also not update the README

didip 1y ago

Why gave up so soon? I remembered reading this on HN not too long ago.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

xur17 1y ago

Welp, looks like I am moving to Frec. Hoping the Apex -> Apex transfer means I can transfer partial shares. Note for other folks in this situation: you should be able to find a referral link and get a $250 bonus for transferring over.

amberlyfrec 1y ago
Frec is here to help! And going to offer a $250 bonus to clients moving over. Double will be sharing the link soon.
- xur17 1y ago
  A few questions that you might be able to help with (also happy to jump on a call to discuss, you can find my details in my profile): - Transferring - will partial shares be liquidated (since both are part of Apex)? - Can I see my portfolio through Apex Clearing independently (something that Double provided)? - If I want to transfer my assets in in kind, and invest them in the Total US index, how do I ensure that nothing is sold as part of the rebalance during that transfer?
  - amberlyfrec 1y ago
    Absolutely. 1. We also custody with Apex so you'll be able to transfer easily between Frec <> Double and continue to see your assets held independently. 2. We can definitely setup a call to review the individual positions and the evaluate risk of positions being sold to rebalance. You can book a demo here: https://calendly.com/frecdemo/frec-demo https://calendly.com/frecdemo/frec-demo or feel free to email me amberly@frec.com
    - xur17 1y ago
      Thank you. Do you know the answer to the partial shares question?
      - amberlyfrec 1y ago

infecto 1y ago

Saw some posts asking why and for postmortems. I am not the founder, not in the retail industry but adjacent space to understand enough of why. 1) there are already competitors in this space that have been there for a decade or longer. Higher fees but not significantly so to counter the risk of doing business with a startup. 2) If you use their calculator is a bit disingenuous, starting balance of $1mm. Those clients exist but that’s the minority. If you bring that number down to a more typical average or median for someone with a 30 year horizon you see that the difference is not material compared to their default assumptions. 3) if you are a high net worth individual where tax low harvesting matters, the product does not feel that compelling.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
Indeed, this is ideally suited as a small team in a brokerage or other asset management firm, marketed to existing high net worth customer relationships either as part of the asset under management fee or some cut of tax savings realized. It is not a sustainable standalone business.

ramesh31 1y ago

SEC is a complete joke at this point. Zero due diligence being done on companies like this, and as always, the consumer is left footing the bill.

amberlyfrec 1y ago

Frec is an option for customers looking for a new low cost direct indexing provider! All assets remain securely held with Apex + Frec has grown to over $300m in assets with continued rapid growth.

Beijinger 1y ago
Would you be so kind to elaborate?
- amberlyfrec 1y ago
  Absolutely - what details are you curious about? I am on the Frec team and happy to provide a demo.

languagehacker 1y ago

Can someone double-check my understanding of this? Double is a portfolio management service that purchases shares that match the blend of a specific index for its customers. So instead of owning an index, you own the shares. Double is winding down because they are not profitable. They are instructing their customers to either fully liquidate their holdings, or perform an ACATS transfer, which generally requires that any fractional holdings be liquidated first. However, the business model will necessarily require holding fractional shares because of the way indexes work. So my question is, this is going to cause many of their customers to get dinged by short-term capital gains tax, right? That stinks.

mizzao 1y ago

I'm a Frec user and have never heard of Double before. Is this likely to happen to them as well?

amberlyfrec 1y ago
Frec team here. We're in a very different position and confident we're here for the long haul. We manage over $300 million in assets, have grown 5x year-over-year, and are on a clear path to profitability without needing additional capital. The business is built on sustainable AUM-based fees with strong unit economics.