So, I've been using their free platform for some time to track our investments. IMO, it's the gold standard for financial tech platforms...at least ones I can access freely. It's very informative, easy to view, and fun to play with if you've never used it.

Obviously, they offer full fiduciary advisement and management services as well. I had a free assessment call with them recently primarily because I happened to answer the phone when they called me. It was an interesting call. I'm intrigued by their vision and concept and love the idea of actually managing everything through their one tool.

Essentially, they work much more near real-time as opposed to a traditional FA and they are highly keyed in on tax harvesting and efficiency and diversifying through low cost ETF's. Their tech allows you to see this all visually in a very slick package as well as the transactional moves they are making on your behalf. They aren't selling their own products and very competitive fee wise.

Curious if anyone uses their full advisory service and your experience with them?

Note: I managed all of this myself until a few years ago and no longer wish to do so.

moved to them about 5 months ago.

I wouldn't say I've been "impressed" thus far but I've got no complaints.

I do feel they're going to struggle with more complex tax issues and alternative investments than a personal advisor/CPA/attorney combo would do.

I also dislike that they can't manage my 401k directly or my HSA. I've got to go make those trades myself. They DO however take the allocation into play and tell you to "buy X% of this Y% of that" and so on for auto-invest.

I would like a LITTLE more usability to their retirement planner. Based on what I'm showing... I can keep pumping $40k a year into retirement investments and retire at 58 pretty darn easily. The main crux is their tool can't really do pension/defined benefit projections (mainly, TRS pensions).

I value my SO's pension at around $2.5MM at retirement meaning we've only got to get our actual nestegg up to about $1.5MM.

Anyways, off topic - I'm using it and my portfolio is beating the market since I've started with them, for what it's worth.

What's their fee? They've been blowing up my phone for about 2 months and I just keep dodging the calls since they always come from the same area code.

NTXAg10 said:

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What's their fee? They've been blowing up my phone for about 2 months and I just keep dodging the calls since they always come from the same area code.

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I was quoted 0.79% for portfolios $1-3M and then it drops after that. Thinking more about this I'm not sure how that equates apples to apples to traditional. My more traditional firm is cheaper and straight fee based, but they also aren't doing the near real-time work that PC is doing (or claims to do) from a tax harvesting perspective.

If you sign up with them they move all of your stuff to Pershing / NY Bank of Mellon(?) so they can make transactions directly in your accounts.

Maybe Chopping can provide some perspective on the tax harvesting side of things.

I would say choppins description above fits my experience thus far. I have been pleased but not knock your socks off. That being said it's early in my experience (6months) and have no regrets and would recommend them to others. I managed this all on my own for years and I have enjoyed having someone to collaborate with that is a fiduciary, so I find value in that.

I looked closely at it but went with Vanguard PAS at .30%

Is vanguards fee in addition to the fund fees if using MF, IF, or ETFs?

That's expensive. Should be .5% or lower.

And they should be better than up 35% up this year.....otherwise what is the point.

No. Internal fund fees are not part of the advisory fee.

Vanguard fees are extremely low on funds so shouldn't be a consideration. However, PC has a decent allocation to alternatives which imagine have expensive carry.

FunkyKO said:

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That's expensive. Should be .5% or lower.

And they should be better than up 35% up this year.....otherwise what is the point.

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That's why I stated my second post after thinking it through more. My current FA is < .5%, but they aren't doing this tax harvesting activity that PC purports to do in a near real-time basis. So, the question becomes are you gaining enough in tax harvesting + PC's emphasis on alternatives for diversification to overcome the gap in expenses between my current FA and what I would pay them.

Granted, I'm doing similar methodologies with my current FA but manually and with much less frequency. My current FA would gladly put me in a more managed relationship but I refuse to do that because the ROI doesn't exist. So, with PC, it seems as if you are potentially paying a premium for automation and less hassle factor at the end of the day.

The really cheap (relative) baked in advising services that Vanguard (like Cyp0111 uses) and Fidelity are intriguing as well, but I don't know what all is involved with that. I assume it's strictly investment advising vs a more all in one solution like my FA.

Having said all of that, I'm simply going to press my current FA what their technology strategy is going forward and how they plan to keep up with the market. They do have their own platform, but not as slick as PC's. I'm guessing he will tell me they will gladly do what PC is doing but I expect my expense ratio would skyrocket if I opted for that because I don't think they will do it without putting you in their products.

Tax harvesting.

Sounds like they are doing is getting a list of mutual funds who are paying a large long term gain at the end of the year.

Set the fund to pay cash. Do not reinvest the gain.

The day after the fund pays the gain.....the fund nav drops by the amount of the gain per share.

You then sell the fund for a short term loss.

Example. Let's say you have 20k in short term gains....you want to convert those to long term gains

Use the above example to convert gains

You have now converted short term gains to long term gains.

Since funds end their fiscal before the end of the year, the gains are known.

The key is having the database of the entire fund universe and running a spreadsheet. That's it.

I'll say this. Just like some doctors engineers athletes etc are better than others and love their craft. Fa's are the exact same way.

As long as you own fund before the ex date....basically the longest you'd have to own the fund is 30 days. More or less.

Example last year. Tgdix. Bot on 12/19 19.77. It paid 7.40 long term gain.

Sold on day after gain was paid. 12/30 12.37 for a short term loss.

FunkyKO that's not how tax-loss harvesting works, or at least not how investment professionals implement it. TLH is essentially deferring tax paid on gains, and is much easier to do through ETF's than mutual funds or especially individual securities due to the ability to reinvest immediately into a like-kind security. Our firm does a fair amount, though it's important to not let the tax tail wag the dog in this case.

Per the previous comments, Personal Capital is a good option for the majority of those considered non-HNW or at least not yet. Their platform is excellent and having access to a CFP is valuable, though there are cheaper options such as Vanguard's PAS or Wealthfront/Betterment for that. I'd say their sweet spot is probably less than $500-800k at most. Beyond that a real financial advisor may make more sense.

Their recruiters have pitched me a few times but I'm not in love with the model i.e. a 'call-center' CFP who is responsible for 300+ clients and the financial planning process and advice is very standardized i.e. 30 minute meetings with minimal prep based on their software, whereas I might have 50 clients that I meet with multiple times per year and probably put in at least 20 hours/year for each of those clients. My 2c

neutics said:

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FunkyKO that's now how tax-loss harvesting works, or at least not how investment professionals implement it. TLH is essentially deferring tax paid on gains, and is much easier to do through ETF's than mutual funds or especially individual securities due to the ability to reinvest immediately into a like-kind security. Our firm does a fair amount, though it's important to not let the tax tail wag the dog in this case.

Per the previous comments, Personal Capital is a good option for the majority of those considered non-HNW or at least not yet. Their platform is excellent and having access to a CFP is valuable, though there are cheaper options such as Vanguard's PAS or Wealthfront/Betterment for that. I'd say their sweet spot is probably less than $500-800k at most. Beyond that a real financial advisor may make more sense.

Their recruiters have pitched me a few times but I'm not in love with the model i.e. a 'call-center' CFP who is responsible for 300+ clients and the financial planning process and advice is very standardized i.e. 30 minute meetings with minimal prep based on their software, whereas I might have 50 clients that I meet with multiple times per year and probably put in at least 20 hours/year for each of those clients. My 2c

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Good insight. I've opted to not pursue PC and stay with our current FA. Absolute dollars wise PC is cheaper; % wise my FA is cheaper but that's because PC would only be charging for my part of the portfolio as it's no longer tied up with a company.

I also like the fact that I can email and call my FA anytime I want and he responds almost immediately. Will still use PC's platform as a secondary view as long as it's free.

I looked at closely and ended up with Vanguard PAS.

As others have said, I used PC as secondary.

Resurrecting this - anyone have any other perspective to add on PC? I was thinking about it, but I'm second guessing it vs a FA.

YouBet said:

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NTXAg10 said:

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What's their fee? They've been blowing up my phone for about 2 months and I just keep dodging the calls since they always come from the same area code.

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I was quoted 0.79% for portfolios $1-3M and then it drops after that. Thinking more about this I'm not sure how that equates apples to apples to traditional. My more traditional firm is cheaper and straight fee based, but they also aren't doing the near real-time work that PC is doing (or claims to do) from a tax harvesting perspective.

If you sign up with them they move all of your stuff to Pershing / NY Bank of Mellon(?) so they can make transactions directly in your accounts.

Maybe Chopping can provide some perspective on the tax harvesting side of things.

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What ETFs are they using?

When they pitched to me a few years ago they had direct holdings only, which would be a nightmare if you ever wanted to transfer out

Having ETFs now is better, certainly.

The .8% ER is a big hurdle but if you feel more comfortable with someone else managing money and preventing you from doing anything dangerous, it can be worth it. The ER is comparable or less to other RIA's, so you could do a lot worse

They were big on diversification (global, small cap value, etc), so their allocations seemed reasonable. I am 100% DIY though

AggiEE said:

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YouBet said:

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NTXAg10 said:

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What's their fee? They've been blowing up my phone for about 2 months and I just keep dodging the calls since they always come from the same area code.

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I was quoted 0.79% for portfolios $1-3M and then it drops after that. Thinking more about this I'm not sure how that equates apples to apples to traditional. My more traditional firm is cheaper and straight fee based, but they also aren't doing the near real-time work that PC is doing (or claims to do) from a tax harvesting perspective.

If you sign up with them they move all of your stuff to Pershing / NY Bank of Mellon(?) so they can make transactions directly in your accounts.

Maybe Chopping can provide some perspective on the tax harvesting side of things.

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What ETFs are they using?

When they pitched to me a few years ago they had direct holdings only, which would be a nightmare if you ever wanted to transfer out

Having ETFs now is better, certainly.

The .8% ER is a big hurdle but if you feel more comfortable with someone else managing money and preventing you from doing anything dangerous, it can be worth it. The ER is comparable or less to other RIA's, so you could do a lot worse

They were big on diversification (global, small cap value, etc), so their allocations seemed reasonable. I am 100% DIY though

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I don't recall since this was many months ago. I just couldn't justify paying more than double than what I'm currently paying. Doubt any near real-time tax loss harvesting would have made up the difference.

YouBet said:

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AggiEE said:

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YouBet said:

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NTXAg10 said:

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What's their fee? They've been blowing up my phone for about 2 months and I just keep dodging the calls since they always come from the same area code.

---

I was quoted 0.79% for portfolios $1-3M and then it drops after that. Thinking more about this I'm not sure how that equates apples to apples to traditional. My more traditional firm is cheaper and straight fee based, but they also aren't doing the near real-time work that PC is doing (or claims to do) from a tax harvesting perspective.

If you sign up with them they move all of your stuff to Pershing / NY Bank of Mellon(?) so they can make transactions directly in your accounts.

Maybe Chopping can provide some perspective on the tax harvesting side of things.

---

What ETFs are they using?

When they pitched to me a few years ago they had direct holdings only, which would be a nightmare if you ever wanted to transfer out

Having ETFs now is better, certainly.

The .8% ER is a big hurdle but if you feel more comfortable with someone else managing money and preventing you from doing anything dangerous, it can be worth it. The ER is comparable or less to other RIA's, so you could do a lot worse

They were big on diversification (global, small cap value, etc), so their allocations seemed reasonable. I am 100% DIY though

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I don't recall since this was many months ago. I just couldn't justify paying more than double than what I'm currently paying. Doubt any near real-time tax loss harvesting would have made up the difference.

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Agreed. The benefits of TLH are grossly overstated, and not too difficult for individual investors to pull off

I've heard the benefits may be 15 basis points or slightly more. Depends on your individual tax situation but it's certainly nothing massive