05/16/2022: Weekly Briefing
Today I’m doing something a little different and reviewing the app Personal Capital. A few readers have recommended it to me, so I thought I’d finally check it out.
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐
I wasn’t wowed, but it wasn’t a complete waste of time either.
Cost: ⭐⭐⭐
(+) Free for the budgeting part of app (great!)
(+) Get 1 free financial consult; the person I talked to was great and gave some really interesting advice. Apparently, I’m over-allocated on large cap index funds…which I have intentionally done. I thought just putting my investments in S&P 500 was good…? But the financial advisor told me that I should also invest in small and mid-cap stocks. (Anyone out there can help me out on this? Is this financial advisor right?)
(+) 0.65% APY for cash account w/ zero minimums and fees
(-) 0.49-0.89% bps for financial advisory and wealth management. The fee is 0.89% bps if you invest $1M or less, and then it goes in a downwards sliding scale until you reach 0.49% if you have $10M+. I assume the majority of us would fall into the first category, so for example, if you were to invest $50,000 with them, you would pay about $445/year for this service or about $37/month. IMO, this seems a bit high.
(-) financial management requires $50K minimum with them…this is a fairly high balance IMO
Usability: ⭐⭐⭐
(+) fairly straightforward to connect bank, trading, etc. accounts
(+) the investment checkup section shows which assets you’re invested in vs. their recommendation. For example, I am overweighted in S&P500 stocks…
(+) can link Zestimate to track real estate values. It seemed to track pretty well with market values. Although if you co-own the home it doesn’t allow you to split the ownership % (ex. own 50% of a house with your partner)
(+) The FAQ has a ‘known’ issue section which highlights common issues with linking accounts. I appreciated that I could refer to this to see if the issues I was having were known. Although it did not include Robinhood, which I had multiple issues with.
(-) not being able to link most crypto accounts and having to enter it manually
(-) I had issues connecting my Robinhood account. They said that if that happens to try logging in via desktop.
(-) The categorizing of transactions was very hit/miss. At least 1-2 transactions per category were wrong.
Trust: ⭐⭐⭐
(+) Uses 256 bit encryption tech, which seems to fairly good (any computer experts out there who can shed more light on this…?)
(+) Cash accounts are FDIC insured up to $1.25M
(-) anytime you have all your accounts connected in one place, I believe it increases risk. However, the trade off is ease of use and having it all in one place…Up to you and your comfort level.
Reviews: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Overall, seems to have good reviews from others
Nerd Wallet = 4.5 / 5
The College Investor = 4 / 5
PC Mag = 3.5 / 5
Investopedia = 4.2 / 5
iPhone store = 4.7 / 5
Android store = 4.3 / 5
Reddit rants:
“Entrusting Personal Capital with our nest egg cost us years of retirement savings!”
“I use a few different companies to manage my retirement accounts and my PC accounts have done the best recently.”
What did you think of this review? Should I do more like this or do you prefer commentary on markets/news?
Money & Crypto
The crypto crash this past week reiterates my point tobe careful the coins you invest in! (Fortune) (Revisit my primer for a refresher.) My take is that the crypto markets are volatile and that in any emerging industry there is a lot of winners and losers as the industry/asset matures. But for sure it’s been a wild ride the last few days. What’s interesting in this article is that they mention bitcoin/crypto tracking with the markets rather than acting as an inflationary hedge. One of the common pro-bitcoin arguments I hear is given its fixed supply it creates a natural hedge against inflation. But if bitcoin tracks with the markets, then its not really a hedge…I think time will tell which of these proves true.
Terra/UST crashes (CoinDesk)
Musk’s Twitter deal now “on hold” because of an NDA issue…? Not sure but all I can say is that I can’t say I’m surprised? Lol (CNN)
Possible tax crypto ponzi scheme (Bloomberg)
Baby formula shortage (Time)
Robinhood shares jump 25% after Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX acquires stake (CNBC) (could this lead to a possible FTX & Robinhood merger…?)
Intiuit pays $141M settlement for pushing customers towards paying for TurboTax (ProPublica)
As I discussed recently, Fidelity added bitcoin into 401k plans, but the Biden administration is not a fan and the Labor department is raising concerns (Politico)
100 Conversations Project
15% of the way through! Let’s keep going!
Sign up here to chat with me about what would make it easier to manage investments and budgets. I have a couple more spots left in May.
Wallet set up
If you’ve been interested in buying crypto, but don’t know where to start, email me at walletstreetpodcast@gmail.com and I’ll set up some time to walk you through how to set things up.
Etc.
Pulitzer Prize Winners announced
Phillipine election results
🎧Former Attorney General Eric Holder on how Malcom X influenced him, and why he thinks the Shelby County court case is our generation’s equivalent of Dred Scott
📖If royal gossip is your thing and you’re a fan of The Crown, The Palace Papers by Tina Brown is a juicy behind the scenes of the British Royal family over the last 20 years (I was visiting a friend and she was reading it and I picked it up to read a short excerpt and see what it was about. It was so addictive that I kept reading it in secret when she wasn’t reading it… lol. I will actually go buy my own copy now.)
Podcast Pick of the Week
🎧The success you have today is the result of the work you did 3 months ago. Really trying to have this sink in when I’m feeling like I’m not making progress with work and personal projects. It’s a good reminder!
Disclaimer: All opinions are my own. The content on this site and on the podcast does not constitute financial, legal, accounting, tax, or investment advice.
