I started with and was a Wealthfront customer for many years. I'm appreciative and credit them with starting my education and understanding on investing.
What caused me to leave?
- They aren't global portfolio aware. Bonds belong in tax advantaged accounts, then taxable. If you've maxed out your 401k/IRAs in Bonds that $ as an absolute percentage should be accounted for in your taxable portfolio construction.
- They don't let you opt out of asset classes. Aka I don't want additional REITs because I have RE exposure already.
- They overly hype tax loss harvesting. It's good to have, but a byproduct of portfolio management not the goal.
- They launched and pushed risky products as a way to increase their fees.
Once you understand what's going on under the hood this isn't complicated to manage yourself with a few ETFs/MFs.
(The direct indexing is awesome and would love to have that back)
What caused me to leave?
- They aren't global portfolio aware. Bonds belong in tax advantaged accounts, then taxable. If you've maxed out your 401k/IRAs in Bonds that $ as an absolute percentage should be accounted for in your taxable portfolio construction.
- They don't let you opt out of asset classes. Aka I don't want additional REITs because I have RE exposure already.
- They overly hype tax loss harvesting. It's good to have, but a byproduct of portfolio management not the goal.
- They launched and pushed risky products as a way to increase their fees.
Once you understand what's going on under the hood this isn't complicated to manage yourself with a few ETFs/MFs.
(The direct indexing is awesome and would love to have that back)