notices - See details
Notices
J
jonathan (not verified)
6th February 2015 | 3:18pm

It is useful to step back and recall the whole investment philosophy behind the robo advisors, propagated by Vanguard's John Bogle and Burton Malkiel, that says that active management has not been proven to be superior to buy and hold index fund investing. If you are in this camp, then it boils down to coming up with a sensible asset allocation profile based on your age and liquidity requirements, and implementing it in the most cost effective way, generally via Vanguard ETF's. No real need to pay recurring fees to a financial or even a robo advisor for this approach.

Some however, prefer a more active approach to investing and believe that it is possible to outperform the market, or even just enjoy the thrill of finding good investing ideas, but as Tadas points out the fees relative to the incremental returns are generally high. I think the future will see more robo type, active hedge fund solutions, offered in a more efficient mainstream way, with fees perhaps slightly higher than the robo advisors to compensate for the active research effort. This will be more exciting.