Robo-Advisors
The Swiss-owned wirehouse was going to pay $1.4 billion before the market plunged, and UBS brought on a new digital-savvy CEO to lead its online efforts
Saturday, September 3, 2022 – 1:34 AM by Brooke Southall
Brooke's Note: It's ironic that I had just sat down to write an article about my three days at the Deal and Dealmakers Summit 2022 in San Diego where dealmakers were all smiles in the San Diego sunshine -- only to be sidetracked by a deal ...
Federal regulators claimed Schwab pre-set client cash allocations without making proper disclosures to Schwab Intelligent Portfolios clients.
Thursday, July 7, 2022 – 12:10 AM by Lisa Shidler
Charles Schwab & Co. is paying the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) $187 million -- if not officially in penance-- for alleged transgressions that put its own interests ahead of its robo clients.
The New York City robo-advisor closed Makara deal in March, skipped any PR, and will Betterment-ize it for Summer launch; never mind the collapse of the token market
Tuesday, May 24, 2022 – 2:33 AM by Oisin Breen
Brooke's Note: Yes there is very good news implicit in all the bad news about cryptocurrencies. If you were late to Cryptomania 1.0, you have a chance to get in near the ground floor for Cryptomania 2.0. For Betterment, that is the hoped-for silver lining to buying Makara in ...
The semi-confusing, higher-fee AmEx-Vanguard package is cheaper, clearer and better unbundled, an RIA calculates, yet may not be too outlandish for the one-stop convenience, a Morningstar analyst counters
Tuesday, April 26, 2022 – 3:49 AM by Lisa Shidler
Brooke's Note: As journalists we can get as wearied of wading through ambiguous fee information as the investor. It causes too much depression, boredom and brain damage to try to sort it all out. So when we learned that Jeffrey DeMaso had worked through the confusing ...
The Newport Beach, Calif.-based robo-advisor finds profits and AUM elusive but has what BlackRock wants -- wide wealth management distribution of ETFs to young investors too cool for traditional advisors
Thursday, March 10, 2022 – 11:06 PM by Oisin Breen
Brooke's Note: When it comes to idealistic young entrepreneurs who run techno-RIAs, there is always Plan B -- skip the idealism and just make money. Wealthfront sold to UBS. SigFig is still a UBS backbone. FutureAdvisor lives like Jonah inside the whale of BlackRock. Learnvest was once ...
New York City robo-advisor CEO Sarah Levy bought 'Makara' after 90% demand it; they can choose crypto for 100% of portfolios but must pay a fee of 100 basis points.
Tuesday, February 15, 2022 – 2:39 AM by Oisin Breen
Brooke's Note: Talk about CEO-level decisions. Betterment, the top stand-alone robo-advisor, got there largely by staying patient across the board, relying on organic growth, a fly-close-to-the-ground investing philosophy and low prices by most any standard. Sarah Levy's green-lighting of the Makara deal doesn't just depart ...
The Palo Alto, Calif., robo-startup's original mission was to disrupt wirehouses, technically and culturally, but now it's one with a wirehouse, its best remaining option
Monday, January 31, 2022 – 9:26 PM by Lisa Shidler
Brooke's Note: The breakaway broker movement has come full circle as wirehouses buy back RIAs -- albeit at eye-popping premiums that defy the laws of natural advisor evolution. When Joe Duran ran out of non-Wall Street buyers willing to pay his price, he sold to ...
The Irvine, Calif., robo-advisor is blaming 'market conditions' but it's the one paying the penalty fee and praising its punisher
Wednesday, January 19, 2022 – 5:34 AM by Brooke Southall
Acorns will pay a $17.5 million fee, lose about $565 million in backing and go fish for new funding after it became the latest firm to get burned by the lure of a back-door IPO. See: Acorns is raising $565 million to Robinhood-ize itself; lately, ...
Just days after the Menlo Park, Calif., firm nabbed ex-TDA star Steve Quirk to call shots, Robinhood announced it'll sell automated portfolio management and the fantasy of beating market.
Saturday, January 15, 2022 – 3:11 AM by Oisin Breen
Brooke's Note: The biggest event in the RIA universe in the past few years is the reduction of the Big Three of custody and discount brokerages to a Big Two. TD Ameritrade is gone as the third freestanding member of that oligopoly. I think when Vlad ...
Toronto-Dominion Bank's other U.S. offspring will hit the ground running with upped wealth management manpower thanks in part to its logo-share with Schwab.
Thursday, December 2, 2021 – 3:17 AM by Lisa Shidler
Charles Schwab Corp. is inching closer to the day when it relegates TD Ameritrade (TDA) to the dustbin, but its former Canadian parent will sweep up the ashes by using the same TD logo to launch a competing robo-advisor and bolster its branch-based advice with a 400% bump in staff.
Though buyers are interested in the Palo Alto, Calif. -headquartered robo, they may have balked at the price, which sources say pushes the envelope even in a hot market, but banker Catalyst will further test the market.
Wednesday, November 17, 2021 – 2:29 AM by Brooke Southall
Wealthfront has hired Quatalyst Partners to find a buyer after a couple more home-cooked deals fell through, according an RIAbiz fintech source who asked not to be identified.
The 13-year-old New York City startup is one year into a rebirth under new CEO Sarah Levy who is hiring like crazy and plans to invest aggressively in both B2B units -- for 401(k) and RIA custody.
Thursday, September 30, 2021 – 1:42 AM by Oisin Breen
Brooke's Note: The smart analysts had it right all along about robo-advisors. They never saw them competing with RIAs. Instead, they saw them as competitors for the kind of DIY investors that the online brokers court. As such, automated portfolios of ETFs were a niche within a ...
The Redwood City, Calif., robo-advisor turned a hard 'no' into a soft 'yes' by dealing with Grayscale and its 200 basis-point-plus fees, which its robo rival in NYC -- also without a crypto path -- finds ludicrous.
Saturday, August 14, 2021 – 2:20 AM by Oisin Breen
Wealthfront came to a fork in the road with two bad options -- denying access to cryptocurrency or providing access outside its low-price, ETF-reliant paradigm. It chose the latter for up to 10% of an investor's holdings.
AmEx is doing a U-turn to get back into financial planning now that competitors VISA and Mastercard are expressing an interest in the business.
Monday, August 2, 2021 – 2:52 AM by Lisa Shidler
American Express is marketing financial planning, again, 16 years after spinning off its 10,700-advisor planning mega-unit to concentrate on high-end credit cards.
The 2013-founded, New York City-based alternatives investments company has positive cash flow, high growth and the growing support of more giants and RIAs
Wednesday, July 28, 2021 – 2:25 AM by Brooke Southall
Brooke's Note: The list of platinum-plated investors in iCapital is almost a spoof of itself because it includes Blackstone, UBS, BNY Mellon, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, BlackRock, The Carlyle Group, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Chase and KKR. It's hard not to wonder how the head ...