I moved everything from Vanguard to Betterment a year ago and am super happy with return rate and ease of use. I tell it my risk level and it manages a whole diversified portfolio.This link will get you a free $25 on first deposit.

Fees are v inexpensive at 0.15% which pencils out to $150/year per $100K invested.

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edit: was curious what returns are, looks like 5.8% over a year

What is your risk set as admo?

90% stocks / 10% bonds which on the Betterment scale is right on the line between 'Moderate' and 'Aggressive'. Here's a breakdown of the portfolio it created for me based on this risk level:


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Here's a comparison of the 11 current players in this space: Wealthfront vs. Betterment vs. Vanguard vs. FutureAdvisor vs. SigFig
(His conclusion: Betterment wins, with WealthFront a close second)

cool, thanks a lot

Obv one year is a pretty meaningless sample size, but in relative terms the market as a whole is up like 25% over the same timeframe...

Admo,

For an aggressive allocation like yours, I'm surprised the total return is only 5.9% since during the same time frame, the SP500 is up about 22%. Perhaps developed/emerging markets are under performing.

I don't understand why Betterment recommended to buy total stock market and also SP500, Mid-cap, and small-caps. This is a huge overlap, especially when SP500 makes 22.6% of your portfolio. Personally, I think using the Warren Buffet allocation is superior: 90% SP500, 10% Bonds.

If you still want to invest internationally, I would invest in countries like S. Korea, Taiwan, maybe Brazil. Southeast Asia has been hemorrhaging funds for almost a decade and because they're so behind in technology development, it'll be a long time for their countries' GDP to increase dramatically. Some of these countries' GDP are less than Google's market cap.

Best of luck.

Disclaimer: This information is given for investment education only. It may not work for your specific situation. It is not investment advice, and I am not your investment adviser. You have to find your own financial adviser to get investment advice and help with your problem.

The last paragraph of my previous post got deleted while writing.

short version: return rates are seemingly low b/c I pulled all the funds from the account in Oct to finish a housing development and re-deposited in January when the project sold. market went on a big run while this account was on the sidelines.

admo do you mind sharing how your vanguard did? literally 2 days ago i was talking to my mom about hers and she said all they did was lose her money.

So my girlfriend's brother knows that I play poker and wants me to teach him.

He is not really a poker enthusiast but has played casually.

Where would you start with trying to teach a beginner?

If they want to play online, perhaps they should start at a simpler game like sit and gos, and learn pushfold charts etc. before moving to cash games? Runitonce/Cardrunners I presume have a lot of SSNL series but I'm guessing they are going to be a bit too in depth for someone completely new to online poker.

What are the best books out there for this kind of level? Thanks.

lol

That is weird, but why do you call it weird and then recommend an even more US large cap focused strat? I guess what betterment is doing could be good for tax loss selling.

Admo, I'm assuming you're paying .15% + the ETF fees (+ commissions?). Obviously it's cheaper to buy them directly but probably worth the convenience for a lot of people. I'd doubt the returns would vary significantly from Vanguard, as betterment is investing in Vanguard ETFs.

So I take it he wants you to teach him so he can make lots o monies? Meh, I wouldn't do it. My sisters husband asked me similar and I basically told him if you get into poker to try to make money rather than bc you love the game and want to challenge yourself then you're unlikely to be able to handle the swings and ever get good or even stick w/ the game once you get good. I'd just point him to a bunch of content and if he puts in enough effort on his own then I would start to work w/ him on it.

what are some of the best steakhouses in vegas?

I donno, but I ate on top of the stratosphere and it was definitely pretty cool.

Cut, Craftsteak, Carnevino are generally regarded as top 3 (and that order imo)

Don't remember returns but I had a bunch of diff funds — some did well, some got clobbered. But I'm a fish and was likely just mashing buttons.

0.15% flat, and tax loss harvesting is automatic

Not trying to get into it, but the .15% isn't in total, yes you are paying the fees from others in addition. I am no expert at investing but do know Betterment and other similar companies are generally regarded as total fish plays, especially as almost all of us should have portfolios of 100% stock 0% bond at our age (and arguably any age).

And even if you did want to invest in bonds, just investing x % in index funds and y % in bond funds would save you that .15%. LOL at the value of automatic reinvesting/how easy it is to reinvest on your own/how little it matters if your 70/30 domestic to international portfolio slips to 60/40 as it's pretty impossible to even know what the optimal ratio is anyway.

If you believe as I do that you can't ever beat the market w/o a ton of work, just picking 1 domestic and 1 international vanguard fund aka VTI and VXUS is an outrageously easy strategy.

And more importantly, for those of you filing a schedule C and making a lot of money, it is suicidal for you not to be putting away 52k a year in a tax sheltered solo 401k.

You guys should all invest on hour and read Vanguard 4 principles of investing. That will teach you so much in so little time.

90% of the time it wont lead to anything except a small to massive time sink. Speaking from experience.

Yeah, it's 0.15% + the fees in those ETF's/Funds they use. Using something like betterment is definitely NOT a fish play. It's light years better than what the average fish does, which is buying some ridiculously high fee mutual fund from some advisor that they happen across. If you don't have time to mess with rebalancing and tax harvesting on your own, it's probably well worth the 0.15%. So many people make terrible choices or don't invest because of the perceived difficulty or hassle, betterment would be a really great option for them.

Any argument that asserts an investor should be 100% stock at any age is terrible. I say this as a guy who is currently 100% allocated to stocks due to the current bond environment.


Totally agree with all of this.

I personally like a little more complicated portfolio mix, with a tilt to emerging markets (especially based on values right now!) and small/value.

Sorry, been crazy busy and haven't been able to respond until today.

My current portfolio is pretty similar in structure to what you would see from a company like betterment / weathfront / etc. However, I've got a much larger % allocation towards emerging markets and 0% in bonds right now. That's largely due to the current bond market and my perception that EM is very undervalued. This means I will have potentially higher volatility, but I obviously believe I'll get higher returns in the long run.

EM has underperformed the broad market significantly in recent years, so that means my returns have been lower than if I hadn't tilted that way. I'm still confident in that in the long term.

Open Q: does your recommendation for vanguard index funds change if this is not a long term hold play? I've got retirement covered—just need a (very liquid) place to park chunks in between projects, usually around 3-9 months.

thx for feedback all, appreciate it.

Really depends on your willingness to incur volatility/losses in the funds while you park it. If you aren't going to be upset by a potential 10%+ drop due to a market correction while it's parked, you could definitely do an index fund. You could also look at a short/intermediate term bond fund, which would have correspondingly lower volatility/potential returns.

I personally just keep my business working capital in money market/savings accounts, which obviously gets a terrible return right now. :/

Automated tax lost harvesting!

IMO holding your money in index funds will be better over the very long term if you are investing a large enough amount that the gains overcome the transaction costs.

jalexand42 covered the other concern - volatility.

I've always been confused when people recommend always holding your shorter term money in CDs or money market funds. If you have enough money to deal with volatility then you should be nearly fully invested IMO - with enough money liquid only to cover things that can't wait 3-5 days.

true korea commands me to post this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0zwirfmGIU