<story><title>UBS Acquires Wealthfront for $1.4B</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ubs-buy-us-wealth-management-specialist-wealthfront-14-bln-2022-01-26/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lzrs</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been researching robo-advisors quite a bit recently. They are really interesting and innovative.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll preface by saying that I have been talking to a lot of financial planners (at top-tier institutions). They basically set you up with a good set of ETFs, hedge funds, etc. and rebalance occasionally. Sometimes they do tax-loss harvesting. They also provide a few other nice little services. But at the end of the day, their fees are over 1% unless you have an ultra high net-worth.&lt;p&gt;In comparison, Wealthfront can automate huge strategies for a fraction of the cost (0.25%). For example:&lt;p&gt;- Direct Indexing (invest in an index by buying the stocks directly instead of a fund)&lt;p&gt;- Automatic investing, rebalancing, and tax-loss harvesting (including TLHing individual stocks within an index when paired with direct indexing)&lt;p&gt;- Coordinating trades between retirement and taxable accounts for optimal tax savings&lt;p&gt;- Smart beta (a custom weighted indexing algorithm)&lt;p&gt;Yes, a financial planner can do all of this (although most don&amp;#x27;t). But when they do, they just use automated software to do it. It would be impossible to implement these strategies manually. So why even go with a financial planner when Wealthfront does the same thing, but better&amp;#x2F;cheaper?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>maxclark</author><text>I started with and was a Wealthfront customer for many years. I&amp;#x27;m appreciative and credit them with starting my education and understanding on investing.&lt;p&gt;What caused me to leave?&lt;p&gt;- They aren&amp;#x27;t global portfolio aware. Bonds belong in tax advantaged accounts, then taxable. If you&amp;#x27;ve maxed out your 401k&amp;#x2F;IRAs in Bonds that $ as an absolute percentage should be accounted for in your taxable portfolio construction.&lt;p&gt;- They don&amp;#x27;t let you opt out of asset classes. Aka I don&amp;#x27;t want additional REITs because I have RE exposure already.&lt;p&gt;- They overly hype tax loss harvesting. It&amp;#x27;s good to have, but a byproduct of portfolio management not the goal.&lt;p&gt;- They launched and pushed risky products as a way to increase their fees.&lt;p&gt;Once you understand what&amp;#x27;s going on under the hood this isn&amp;#x27;t complicated to manage yourself with a few ETFs&amp;#x2F;MFs.&lt;p&gt;(The direct indexing is awesome and would love to have that back)</text></comment>
<story><title>UBS Acquires Wealthfront for $1.4B</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ubs-buy-us-wealth-management-specialist-wealthfront-14-bln-2022-01-26/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lzrs</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been researching robo-advisors quite a bit recently. They are really interesting and innovative.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll preface by saying that I have been talking to a lot of financial planners (at top-tier institutions). They basically set you up with a good set of ETFs, hedge funds, etc. and rebalance occasionally. Sometimes they do tax-loss harvesting. They also provide a few other nice little services. But at the end of the day, their fees are over 1% unless you have an ultra high net-worth.&lt;p&gt;In comparison, Wealthfront can automate huge strategies for a fraction of the cost (0.25%). For example:&lt;p&gt;- Direct Indexing (invest in an index by buying the stocks directly instead of a fund)&lt;p&gt;- Automatic investing, rebalancing, and tax-loss harvesting (including TLHing individual stocks within an index when paired with direct indexing)&lt;p&gt;- Coordinating trades between retirement and taxable accounts for optimal tax savings&lt;p&gt;- Smart beta (a custom weighted indexing algorithm)&lt;p&gt;Yes, a financial planner can do all of this (although most don&amp;#x27;t). But when they do, they just use automated software to do it. It would be impossible to implement these strategies manually. So why even go with a financial planner when Wealthfront does the same thing, but better&amp;#x2F;cheaper?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mushufasa</author><text>Many people who start off with Robos like Wealthfront actually leave once their net worth rises and pay more for human advisors.&lt;p&gt;If you need to invest a small&amp;#x2F;decent amount of money into stocks, Robos work wonderfully. It&amp;#x27;s a mass production angle -- good quality service at lower cost to many people; the Ford Model T of investing. Early robot just had a couple of investment options, and now there are more options but the same concept of limited choice at scale (Mustangs, Minvans, Trucks in my example)&lt;p&gt;Once you have estate planning and complicated tax issues, human advisors provide a lot of guidance to people that is hyper specific to you and your location &amp;#x2F; niche, which Robos just don&amp;#x27;t cover. Wealthfront, for example, won&amp;#x27;t arbitrate a dispute between beneficiaries of a family trust.&lt;p&gt;I think lawyers are a good comparison here. If you need some standard cookie-cutter incorporation docs, there&amp;#x27;s a bunch of websites where you can get some core documents for free or a few hundred dollars. But if you&amp;#x27;re afraid of making the wrong choice, or if you&amp;#x27;re in a situation that goes beyond the common scenarios (like M&amp;amp;A), then you hire a lawyer to provide you personalized advice.</text></comment>