Wealthfront

[bigfoot11]

Hello!
Was wondering how many here use Wealthfront as a "set it and forget it" type of investment vehicle and the pros and cons of Wealthfront.

I know your busy and thanks for a respond post

bigfoot11

[Aggie1999]

Set is and forget it and watch your earnings go down the drain because of the additional expense ratios Wealthfront and Betterment charge. Checkout the following link. Is actually pretty shocking how much Wealthfront and the like cost versus something like a Vanguard Total Stock Market admiral fund or ETF.

http://www.begintoinvest.com/expense-ratio-calculator/

[Vanguards and Lentils]

I started a Wealthfront account using a referral, and have referred two more people, so I have up to $25k invested for free. I will use a different vehicle once I start approaching that limit. It is nice to have someone choose my allocations of various ETFs for me even though I should do that myself.

[Aggie1999]

I started a Wealthfront account using a referral, and have referred two more people, so I have up to $25k invested for free. I will use a different vehicle once I start approaching that limit. It is nice to have someone choose my allocations of various ETFs for me even though I should do that myself.

You should think about whether Wealthfront's theory of spreading funds over multiple ETF's, which comes out to a base 0.15% ER, is actually more profitable than going with something like Vanguard Total Stock Market with a 0.05% ER. I'm not saying one way is right, just saying the 0.10% difference is a fact.

[bigfoot11]

It seems that for the first $10,000 into Wealthfront there is a 0.14% fee. The $7.19 annually doesn't bother me that bad. I can see Aggies point on the extra 0.10%.Also, when your account gets past the criteria for the Robo-Advisor fee that starts getting tacked on as well. It seems like you could combat the Robo-Advisor fee through referrals as supermatthew state.

[Vanguards and Lentils]

I started a Wealthfront account using a referral, and have referred two more people, so I have up to $25k invested for free. I will use a different vehicle once I start approaching that limit. It is nice to have someone choose my allocations of various ETFs for me even though I should do that myself.

You should think about whether Wealthfront's theory of spreading funds over multiple ETF's, which comes out to a base 0.15% ER, is actually more profitable than going with something like Vanguard Total Stock Market with a 0.05% ER. I'm not saying one way is right, just saying the 0.10% difference is a fact.

Because my risk profile there is "aggressive" my allocation there is weighted more towards funds like really similar to vanguard's total stock market fund. The money-weighted average of all my ETFs with wealthfront is .114% which I think is reasonable given the extra diversification (total stock market is only US stocks). Of course at this point we're talking about an extra $6/yr per $10k invested, so if I had to guess whether the extra diversification is worth it, I would guess so.