{"id":15186,"date":"2016-11-16T20:13:08","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T01:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/talk-to-chuck-your-new-robot-overlord\/"},"modified":"2016-11-16T20:13:08","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T01:13:08","slug":"talk-to-chuck-your-new-robot-overlord","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/talk-to-chuck-your-new-robot-overlord\/","title":{"rendered":"Talk to Chuck \u2014 Your New Robot Overlord"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Schwab is a big company. Their market cap currently stands at approximately 50 billion dollars [1]. Even so, Schwab has a remarkable history of reinventing itself as the needs of its customers evolve. Forty years ago, it created one of the first discount brokerage services, and in 1996, it developed an online trading platform to allow anyone to buy and sell stocks on the cheap [2]. <\/span><\/p>\n

The latest challenge for Schwab comes in the form of automated investment services, sometimes referred to as \u201crobo-advisers\u201d to differentiate them from more traditional, human-driven asset management firms. Robo-advisers purport to match or exceed the returns generated by either self-managed portfolios or those devised by expensive financial advisory services, while substantially reducing costs. The United States employs about 300,000 financial advisers. Newcomers like Betterment and Wealthfront are looking to replace human advisers with algorithms written by smart software engineers [3]. <\/span><\/p>\n

Betterment launched its service in May 2010 [4], and Wealthfront a little more than a year later, in December 2011 [5]. The basics of these two services are pretty similar \u2014 each uses automation to choose a blend of mostly low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to create a portfolio aligned with users\u2019 personal preferences for things like retirement timing and risk tolerance. These portfolios are periodically rebalanced to adjust for changing conditions. Each service charges a management fee on a percentage basis. Betterment has no account minimum, and Wealthfront has a minimum of $500, which is low enough to not be a barrier for the vast majority of potential users. Both services offer tax-loss harvesting, another benefit of automation that\u2019s challenging for humans to do on their own [6]. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"screen-shot-2016-11-16-at-8-04-13-pm\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Exhibit 1:<\/i><\/b> NerdWallet summary of offerings from each company [6]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Both companies have grown fast and now manage respectable pools of assets \u2014 ~$6B for Betterment and ~$4B for Wealthfront [7]. Even so, this band of merry adventurers is still far from striking distance of the great treasures guarded by traditional asset managers (Schwab has $2.6T in assets under management; Vanguard has $3.5T) [1][8]. These challengers may seem like nothing more than a minor nuisance, but Schwab appears to be taking the threat seriously. They launched their own take on the robo-adviser, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios (IP), in March 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

Schwab\u2019s IP product is similar to Wealthfront and Betterment in some respects. The most obvious difference is that Schwab\u2019s product claims to be \u201cfree\u201d since it doesn\u2019t charge a management commission or monthly fee. That can be a bit misleading since Schwab draws from its own ETF products to construct portfolios and the ETFs do, in fact, have fees. Even so, the cumulative impact would still seem to put Schwab at a lower cost point compared with Wealthfront and Betterment. There are other differences, such as a $5,000 minimum account size for Schwab and a more limited tax-loss harvesting capability [2]. <\/span><\/p>\n

Though it\u2019s nearly four years late to the party, Schwab\u2019s IP product has already grown larger than Wealthfront or Betterment, surpassing $10B in assets under management as of September 2016 [10]. This is likely owing to the fact that Schwab has a considerably larger traditional asset management customer base to draw from and a stronger brand. Several of the other traditional asset managers have also launched robo-adviser products including Vanguard, TD Ameritrade, and Fidelity. An estimated $72B in total assets is managed by various robo-adviser platforms, with the majority of these assets managed by the traditional asset managers and the remainder spread across various newer entrants. It would seem the \u201cold-guard\u201d is now beating the youngsters at their own game [9].<\/span><\/p>\n

Performance is another big question. Condor Capital Management launched an initiative last year to track the results of robo-adviser managed portfolios \u2014 it opened accounts at 11 companies for the experiment (unfortunately Wealthfront opted not to participate due to a disagreement with Condor about measuring outcomes). Among the participating platforms, Schwab was the top performer with a gain of 10.2% net of fees this year through September [9]. It\u2019s a promising result, but a lot more data is required before we can draw any conclusions about how robo-advisers perform across a variety of market conditions. <\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ll have to wait to see what ultimately becomes of the robot investment managers. It\u2019s clear that newcomers like Wealthfront and Betterment are finally feeling the heat from the more innovative incumbents, like Schwab. Wealthfront, in particular, isn\u2019t going down without a fight. Just last month, Wealthfront reinstated original founder Andy Rachleff as CEO. They\u2019ve stepped up an anti-Schwab PR campaign, claiming that Schwab IP can\u2019t match the tax loss harvesting results of Wealthfront. Rachleff bluntly comments \u201cNot all software is created equal. We believe our software is simply better than our competitors\u201d [11]. <\/span><\/p>\n

(791 words)<\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/span>https:\/\/www.google.com\/finance?cid=6025<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[2]<\/span>https:\/\/www.nerdwallet.com\/blog\/investing\/charles-schwab-intelligent-portfolios-review\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/span>https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/the-switch\/wp\/2015\/11\/05\/robo-advisers-are-here-whats-a-human-financial-planner-to-do\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[4]<\/span>https:\/\/www.betterment.com\/resources\/inside-betterment\/our-story\/the-history-of-betterment\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[5]<\/span>https:\/\/www.wealthfront.com\/two-billion#launch<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[6]<\/span>https:\/\/www.nerdwallet.com\/blog\/investing\/best-robo-advisors\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[7]<\/span>http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/news\/why-wealthfront-replaced-its-ceo\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[8]<\/span>https:\/\/about.vanguard.com\/who-we-are\/fast-facts\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[9]<\/span>http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/spotlight-on-robo-advisers-returns-1478018429<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[10]<\/span>https:\/\/aboutschwab.com\/images\/uploads\/inline\/schw_q3_2016_earnings_release.pdf<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[11]<\/span>http:\/\/www.wealthmanagement.com\/technology\/wealthfront-attacks-schwabs-robo-technology<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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