Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Reviews - What Is It?
WARNING: DO NOT USE Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Until You Read This Review!
Is it a Scam? Does It Really Work?
If you are starting to invest your money, you may benefit from robo-advisors like Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. It promises to help you automate the trading process; however, robo-advisors are not for everyone, so you are recommended to read this review to the end to find out whether this one is the right option for you. In general, it is an investment advisory service that builds, monitors, and rebalances your portfolio in an automatic way. It has no commissions, advisory fees, or account service fees. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios can be accessed from any desktop computer or Apple or Google-based mobile device. It works by filling your portfolio with inexpensive exchange-traded funds (ETFs), spread across about twenty asset classes, including fixed income, stocks, commodities, real estate and an FDIC-insured cash component. After you have selected your ETFs, Schwab professionals will monitor their performance all the time to ensure that your portfolio performs needed. In addition to the opportunity to invest easily, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios promise that you can get set up over a few simple steps: assess your risk profile with a 12-step questionnaire, review the received recommendations and finish the enrollment process.
Generally speaking, a robo-advisor as an online wealth management service giving automated portfolio management advice with no human financial planners. All you will have to do is to answer several questions, fund your account, and your investments will be automatically managed by the software. You are going to get the best return depending on its algorithms. Everything seems to be well-advanced, but what differentiates Schwab Intelligent Portfolios from dozens of other robo-advisor services available on the market. If you are a beginning investor who is looking for straightforward help with less than $50K for investing, then this robo-advisor might be a great option for you. If you like to pick investments but you need detailed financial advice about investing, budgeting, tax planning, etc., you will certainly benefit from the robo-advisor we are discussing in this review. If you will be retiring soon, personalized investing can be a great option for you. The company will gladly provide you a consultation from a financial professional before you make a final decision.
Customer Reviews - Does Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Really Work?
The service is associated with a great number of customer reviews on different websites online. InvestorJunkie gave it an average rating of 3.5 stars. Most users liked Schwab Intelligent Portfolios for the main reason that it comes with an automatic rebalancing and no fees. Most ETFs are Schwab-based. At the same time, this service uses a more difficult ETF selection process, which does not reject many investors, though. What some investors don't like is that the 6%-30% cash allocation cannot be changed, which may result in "a significant drag on returns." One Forbes article of 2015 mentioned a large cash percentage, self-focused algorithm and limited ETF selection. It was concluded that it can be quite difficult to make a wise decision to an inexperienced investor, first of all, because of a different language available on the service's official site. Let's take a look at some of the strangest terms. The first one is risk profile that incorporates the main characteristic: the level of risk you may face when achieving your financial goals. The faster you need to build your portfolio, the more often you will need to use riskier but higher paying investments. If you are going to retire soon, you might choose lower-risk investments. It is important to be able to assess your risk correctly. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios promises to accomplish this with the help of a 12-step questionnaire.
The users of the service highly appreciate free management. There are no commissions, management fees, or account fees on accounts. Customers need only to pay expense ratios on the used investments, which makes the service really valuable. The average expenses at the individual portfolio levels are: Aggressive portfolio: 0.21%; Moderate-risk portfolio: 0.16%; Conservative portfolio: 0.07%. This robo-advisor is also good for more experienced investors. The company behind the service, Charles Schwab, held an A+ BBB rating with 33 closed complaints. Let us take a look at some of the actual users' reviews left online.
"I like Schwab Intelligent Portfolios because there is no annual advisory fee and it is easy to use even for beginners. The risk-assessment quiz is fast to complete and provides exact results. The website is well developed and has a nice design. I have been a Schwab client for a few months and I am satisfied with the service. I can go to my main dashboard, check all of my Schwab accounts and analyze them. With the service's website I can dive deeper into my Intelligent Portfolios assets."
"I enjoyed the phone customer service offered by SchwabIntelligent Portfolios. When I called them, the representative answered all of my questions stating the city she was based in. It was Indianapolis that is two hours from my house. The representative was friendly and professional. In terms of the service itself, I was completely pleased with Intelligent Portfolios and I do recommend it to everyone."
"The online chat system of Schwab Intelligent portfolios is perfect for me, as it is fast and efficient. I haven't received any error messages and received a response every time I needed it. I also received good responses on email. I also found it nice that their website had a unique brand design. I appreciate the opportunity of investing through this website."
My Final Summary
Charles Schwab is one of the best online brokerage companies to introduce a robo-advisor. Even though a great number of competitors have emerged with a series of similar offerings within the last year, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios has remained a leader of the pack, mainly due to the absence of account management fees. The service has over $10 billion in assets under management. These are the exchange-traded funds used in its managed portfolios that help the company to earn money. The robo-advisor is a good choice for investors who have $5,000 account minimum and agree to have a portfolio with a high allocation toward cash.
In addition to great phone service, Intelligent Portfolios offers a high quality email service and live chat. It can be summed up that Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is best for IRA investors, beginner investors, investors who want to trade different asset classes and exchange traded funds, those who are looking for an established, well-known company, as well as investors who don't want to pay too many commissions, fees, or account service fees. With all this in mind, I do recommend Schwab Intelligent Portfolios.
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Pricing and Rates
Intelligent Portfolios doesn't require any commission, advisory fee, or account fees. However, the ETF holdings in the portfolio will charge you the net expense ratios that range from 0.08% for a conservative portfolio, to 0.24% for an aggressive portfolio, and 0.19% for a moderate portfolio. This service seems to have the lowest cost robo in the industry. In fact, it is the only robo-advisor in 2017 that charges no annual management fee. Besides, it has a $5,000 minimum for Intelligent Portfolios.