Anyone using Personal Capital Premium Service

[capitalninja]

Having a difficult time finding any reviews online from someone that's actually used their premium service.

If anyone here has, what are/were your thoughts on it?

[2Birds1Stone]

I've sat through their sales pitch and it's a horrible value.

You are better off paying Vanguard .3% AUM for their advisory service......or better yet just buy a target date fund and forget about it.

[Outside the Box]

I did the interview with them and got the full spiel. I don't like how they do "indexing". They directly index using specific companies to represent the market sector. e.g. Apple, McDonalds, etc, not VTI.

That was a hard pass for me. Not to mention their management fees. I like their free service, though, even if it means I get periodic "won't you please talk to an investment advisor, pleeeeez" calls.

[damnedbee]

I listened to their sales pitch recently. They had some good insights about my asset allocation, and it was good to hear an objective opinion about my FIRE plans in general. However, their fees were still too big to make it worthwhile.

There are a few reviews from actual premium users online, which I found when I was doing my research. You do have to dig a bit, though.

[capitalninja]

This has been my experience. I say through their sales presentation and almost got into an argument with the guy. He kept trying to get me to see why I was taking a ton of risk by not having a little gold and bonds in the portfolio as well as having 35% of my portfolio in a mix of international ETFs.

I agreed with him that my portfolio would probably be more volatile than one that has bonds and gold but it's not more risky. You pay a high price in returns and income just to have less squiggle in the lines.

All things said, I found them to be too expensive given that they can't offer data to substantiate that their sector balanced weighting would outperform what I'm doing myself.

[daffyduck]

For context, I'm currently 90/10 in VTSAX/VBTLX. I've twice sat through Personal Capital's presentation. The basic message is that they can equal or better the performance of my allocation with much lower volatility, as well as giving you access to free consultation on a bunch of other stuff (for example, reviewing my insurance coverage for my business, etc.)

When I asked him how their 'equal sector weighting' approach would've performed in 2008-2011, he used the "Guggenheim S&P 500® Equal Weight ETF (RSP)" as a fund that is most similar to what they do. Indeed, RSP has outperformed VTSAX over the last 10 years by a not-insignificant margin (92.77% versus 73.82% return - here's the chart) however RSP dipped further at the bottom.

The whole reason I was considering using them was to hopefully reduce volatility during the next recession so I have some money to spend when everything is on sale. Paying ~10-20x more than what I pay Vanguard seems silly, and would've eaten up any gains that their algorithm/picks would've given me. To me it's a classic example of what Tim Ferriss would say is "choosing a guaranteed pain for a speculative gain".

I'd be curious to hear from anyone who has actually used this, though, to see what has been their experience.

[Sarah Saverdink]

I'll bite. We just signed up with them last month. We received the first two months free as a promotion and you can cancel/withdraw at any time without penalty.

Reasons:
- We had a lot of cash sitting around ($150K+) and were hesitant to fully invest it in the market given how high it is. Having someone else manage it, takes the emotion out of the equation.
- We had a few random stock accounts lying around, not making good returns and wanted to consolidate.
- I do all of our investing and am not consistent in investing/rebalancing/etc. We've been very busy with life and pretty neglectful on our investment strategy.
- Liked their tax efficiency and tax loss harvesting strategies. If these hold true, it will practically pay for the management fee.
- Access to two dedicated advisors.


Thoughts thus far:
- Definitely wary of the high fees. We gave them control of ~$300k to see how they do. We still have a lot of money in Vanguard ETFs that they are not managing.
- They have our Roth IRAs and a Joint Taxable Account now. Their 'buying individual stocks' plan is a bit unique, but like I said, we're giving them a try to see how they do versus the market. Don't have enough data to make a determination on performance yet.
- I like the free advisor recommendations on "other" items. I sent my advisor a list of the 401k options at my employer and received a recommendation on which funds to invest in for best diversification. Planning to run our insurance, estate info, etc past them as well.
- Our advisors are both very nice and knowledgeable.
- No complaints thus far, but it's only been a month.
- I do love all of their free tools and very much like having all of my account consolidated into one dash board. Love seeing that net worth number creep up each week :)

If you have specific questions, I'm happy to answer them best I can!


If you are potentially interested in using them, you can get 3 months of free wealth management for going through a referral: https://goo.gl/LYuunq I work with Michele in the Denver office and she's been great.

[Guide2003]

I've sat through the spiel once before and just can't quite understand how the 70 stocks can be less risky than index funds. Also the fee seems excessive, although I'm in Betterment and trying to figure out how to break away from their .25%. I have a friend who has a third of his portfolio with Personal Capital and a third with Wealthfront, and he sounds happier about the PC situation. He is certainly a very smart guy but I'm not sure if he was sweet-talked too much by his PC advisor.

[2Birds1Stone]

I'll bite. We just signed up with them last month. We received the first two months free as a promotion and you can cancel/withdraw at any time without penalty.

Reasons:
- We had a lot of cash sitting around ($150K+) and were hesitant to fully invest it in the market given how high it is. Having someone else manage it, takes the emotion out of the equation.
- We had a few random stock accounts lying around, not making good returns and wanted to consolidate.
- I do all of our investing and am not consistent in investing/rebalancing/etc. We've been very busy with life and pretty neglectful on our investment strategy.
- Liked their tax efficiency and tax loss harvesting strategies. If these hold true, it will practically pay for the management fee.
- Access to two dedicated advisors.


Thoughts thus far:
- Definitely wary of the high fees. We gave them control of ~$300k to see how they do. We still have a lot of money in Vanguard ETFs that they are not managing.
- They have our Roth IRAs and a Joint Taxable Account now. Their 'buying individual stocks' plan is a bit unique, but like I said, we're giving them a try to see how they do versus the market. Don't have enough data to make a determination on performance yet.
- I like the free advisor recommendations on "other" items. I sent my advisor a list of the 401k options at my employer and received a recommendation on which funds to invest in for best diversification. Planning to run our insurance, estate info, etc past them as well.
- Our advisors are both very nice and knowledgeable.
- No complaints thus far, but it's only been a month.
- I do love all of their free tools and very much like having all of my account consolidated into one dash board. Love seeing that net worth number creep up each week :)

If you have specific questions, I'm happy to answer them best I can!


If you are potentially interested in using them, you can get 3 months of free wealth management for going through a referral: https://goo.gl/LYuunq I work with Michele in the Denver office and she's been great.

You're handing over ~$2,700 a year for things that most robo advisors do for free.

Vanguard can answer questions just like PC as long as you have a decent portfolio over there......even their managed service is .30% AUM.

[katsiki]

What are the qualifications generally of these advisors?  I'm curious since they offer other advice..

[Sarah Saverdink]

You're handing over ~$2,700 a year for things that most robo advisors do for free.

Vanguard can answer questions just like PC as long as you have a decent portfolio over there......even their managed service is .30% AUM.

How much do fee-only Financial Advisors cost? Given the initial work we've done with them, I'm ok with paying a certain amount. To date, we've paid a whopping $19.26 - partial fee for only a few days at the end of June. July and August are the "free" months. If we don't like their services, we can move the money in a few months, but I've found them to be very helpful thus far. This is an experiment!

I will have to look into Vanguard services more. We have almost $200k with them. Do you know what services they offer at that level?

[Sarah Saverdink]

What are the qualifications generally of these advisors?  I'm curious since they offer other advice..

A lot of their advisors have CFPs and have worked in the finance industry at other companies in various roles for several years. Here are the quick profiles on their advisors: https://www.personalcapital.com/wealth-management/advisors

[Guide2003]

This is an experiment!

I will have to look into Vanguard services more. We have almost $200k with them. Do you know what services they offer at that level?

I'm sure you're taking into account the capital gains that you may have with this experiment that may make it hard to end. I thought I was just experimenting with Betterment, but now the capital gains are making it hard to think about switching!

[Sarah Saverdink]

This is an experiment!

I will have to look into Vanguard services more. We have almost $200k with them. Do you know what services they offer at that level?

I'm sure you're taking into account the capital gains that you may have with this experiment that may make it hard to end. I thought I was just experimenting with Betterment, but now the capital gains are making it hard to think about switching!

There should be an option for you to transfer the actual stock "in kind" and not sell it off. Have you looked into that? They should transfer the cost basis and everything, so that when you do sell it, the new holding company has the proper information.

[Outside the Box]

There should be an option for you to transfer the actual stock "in kind" and not sell it off. Have you looked into that? They should transfer the cost basis and everything, so that when you do sell it, the new holding company has the proper information.

That's my huge problem with going with PC. That's what I keep warning about. Of course you can transfer in-kind. But what are you going to do with a ton of Amazon, Apple, Ford, McKesson, etc (or whatever individual company stocks they use) in your Vanguard? It's going to be an exercise in eternal frustration until you finally sell, eat the gains, and buy funds to do your own management.

Buying into PC is a life sentence, IMO, unless you're 100% IRA with them, in which case, it's hard to then have a total strategy across all accounts.

I would definitely rather use a fee-only CFP than PC, personally.

[bittheory]

Sat through the pitch today. I challenged them on a lot of their speculative promises, emphasizing that I am paying them to essentially match what VTSAX can do. He understood but kept selling the rebalancing aspect and the downside hedging by diversification via non-correlated alternatives. It was a decent pitch, but Bogleheads like myself generally know better. Plus, as mentioned below I don't want to in-kind transfer those assets if I'm not happy with their services and fees, which I will inevitably do.

I don't think these wealth managers are equipped with the data or salesmanship to change mustachian investor mindsets.

[GUNDERSON]

This is an experiment!

checking in... how's it going? does it feel worthwhile?

[ReadySetMillionaire]

Bump.

Sat through the sales pitch today. The guy I spoke to called it "indexing 2.0," which I guess translates to balancing more large/mid/small cap, industry sectors, domestic/international, and tax harvesting.

I was somewhat surprised to see my S&P index funds were so heavily weighted to large cap.

The projected returns were .8% higher, and the fee was 1.0%. I'm obviously incredibly wary.

Anyone with any experience with Personal Capital?

[2Birds1Stone]

Run far away.