My Betterment portfolio did rather poorly. I searched this subreddit and found another user who had a similar experience. http://ift.tt/2ftjTfl I just wanted to add another sample data point.
I wanted to compare how I'd do against Betterment. After reading "A Random Walk Down Wall Street", I was confident in this approach.
I deposited exactly $63,296.25 into Betterment with a 90/10 (stock/bond) allocation. I did this to match my Roth IRA account on the date of deposit. My Roth IRA is just a random compilation of stocks, mostly large-cap US-based and tech-leaning stocks and also SPY for balance.
I did not deposit another penny into either Betterment or my Roth IRA for 2 years (and 14 days).
At that time, my Betterment balance stood at $67,774.03. A $4,477.78 gain (+7.1%). (I do not know exactly how much I paid in taxes over the two years, though Betterment has tax harvesting strategy to minimize taxes)
My Roth IRA, which I reallocated from time-to-time, stood at $87,289.50. A $23,993.25 gain (+37.9%).
I know 2 years is very short-term in the scheme of things. I also know that the US market has been very bullish so a chimp could probably have done just as well. And I know that Betterment diversifies internationally and the rest of the world has not recovered as quickly as the US. I wish I could have continued the experiment but I had to pull out the money to buy another house, and my accountant was sick of having to itemize the hundreds of trades Betterment tends to generate over the year.
Just wondering if anyone else has had better luck with Betterment. I've read you can restrict your portfolio to US equities and bonds. I did not know/do that but if you did, I'd love to hear how your portfolio is doing.
Submitted April 04, 2017 at 12:51PM by iearn_man http://ift.tt/2oz1Hc2
