Jeffery Sparks 
Robo-advisors are software platforms that invest your funds on your behalf for less investment fees than traditional financial advisors and setup is straightforward.
Robo-advisors leverage modern portfolio theory (MPT) to craft portfolios tailored specifically to your goals and preferences, and regularly rebalance them – offering tax-saving strategies such as tax loss harvesting.
1. Personalized Portfolios
Robo-advisors automate key components of investment planning that were traditionally handled by human advisors. They can assess your risk tolerance, set time horizon and goals, rebalance portfolios to optimize returns without too much risk, as well as assess and determine risk tolerance levels.
Financial advisors also make it easier for you to save, invest and move toward financial freedom with limited assets – an invaluable service for individuals who do not yet possess enough wealth to benefit from more comprehensive professional advice from fee-based advisors.
At first, you provide personal details in the form of a form or interview process, then a robo-advisor develops and manages a tailored investment portfolio of exchange traded funds (ETFs) tailored to your financial goals and investment profile. Some providers even provide tax loss harvesting which automatically sells declining ETFs in order to offset capital gains taxes you might otherwise owe.
2. Portfolio Monitoring and Alerts
Robo-advisors can monitor and manage your portfolio on an ongoing basis, from rebalancing by buying or selling assets as necessary to achieve an appropriate balance between risk and return, to notifying you when your portfolio has over or underperformed against its target allocation.
Constant monitoring enables investors to identify investment opportunities, such as when one asset class is underperforming and another asset class is outstripping expectations, prompting you to rebalance your portfolio to maximize returns and minimize pitfalls like an undiversified stock that plummets in value or defaulted bonds.
Robo-advisors often rebalance portfolios based on economic conditions by adjusting the weights of risky and risk-free assets in accordance with economic trends. Furthermore, these services often feature tax loss harvesting – automatically selling losing investments to save on capital gains taxes by purchasing replacement securities – as well as long-term goal planning assistance by helping establish timelines and tracking progress toward your objectives.
3. Tax-Efficient Portfolios
Investment decisions should be guided by goals, financial circumstances, timeline and risk tolerance. But tax considerations also play a vital role; investing without considering tax-efficiency may decrease overall returns significantly.
Tax-efficiency comes from both investment selection and asset location. To achieve maximum tax efficiency, investors should first fund tax-advantaged accounts such as IRAs and 401(k)s before moving money to taxable brokerage accounts – this helps minimize tax drag.
Other considerations could include the types of funds you hold – municipal bond mutual and exchange-traded funds typically do not produce taxable dividends and capital gains – as well as frequency of rebalancing events which could bring with them tax obligations like capital gains recognition or harvesting losses.
LifeYield enables advisors to use reliable technology that accurately measures tax impacts of portfolios on client outcomes and builds trust by consistently producing results that are accurate every time – for instance it can automatically analyze consolidated statements to show investors the true impact of investments on their bottom lines.
4. Automated Trading
Opening an account with a robo-advisor usually involves filling out a questionnaire that assesses your risk tolerance and investment goals, then the robo-advisor will create a customized investment portfolio based on these answers. Portfolios typically consist of mutual funds as well as ETFs for more passive investing options while some robo-advisors even offer passive investing through ETFs only.
Most robo-advisors feature low minimums and fees to ease investors into investing, as well as connecting bank accounts for effortless investing. This makes robo-advisors appealing to younger investors who may feel more at ease sharing personal data online and entrusting technology to manage their wealth management needs.
Afterward, a robo-advisor will apply its algorithms to analyze your data and create a personalized portfolio of mutual funds or ETFs for you to invest in. Furthermore, they’ll monitor markets on your behalf and execute trades automatically as soon as they meet certain criteria – this can reduce costs while taking advantage of potential profit-making opportunities more quickly than you ever could on your own.
