The Robo-Advisor Experiment
2017 was the first time I started thinking seriously about investing money. Many mistakes were made in the beginning, however, slowly after doing much research, I was able to establish a good investment strategy. There are a lot of ways to invest your money today. These include your run of the mill ETFs and index funds, REITs, good old stocks and for the hands off investor — robo-advisors.
In 2017, I heard of a robo-advisor — Wealthfront. Upon doing some research, I found out that they were based on the modern monetary theory (MMT) which had been awarded a Nobel prize. I decided to open an account with them and fund it with some money. It has been almost 4 years now and the money has grown. However, the market has grown too and I wanted to see how the gains in this account stacked up against a total stock market index fund.
As you can see above, I ran a quick portfolio backtest on Portfolio Visualizer for a portfolio with the same amount invested. I calculated the gain on my portfolio both total and year over year and compared it with what a simple 100% VTI holding would have given me with the same initial investment amount. The numbers are pretty self-explanatory.
