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• 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Best for Education

Our Take

With its distinct asset allocation and hands-on investment strategies created by the company’s Chief Investment Officer (CIO), Merrill Guided Investing is not your average robo-advisor. While Merrill Guided Investing fees are higher than those of its competitors, the company banks on its unique approach and reputation as a storied wealth management firm to justify the premium. There are also ways for users to reduce costs through the Preferred Rewards program with Bank of America and Merrill. We’ll take an in-depth look at Merrill Guided Investing to help you decide whether this is the robo-advisor that fits your needs.

Account Overview

Account Setup

Setting up a Merrill Guided Investing account is easy. As is customary, users need to answer basic investment questions about their goals, financial contributions, and timelines. They can include outside accounts in Merrill's analysis to get a comprehensive picture of their finances and their ability to reach their goals. Investors can either manually choose their risk tolerance or answer a few questions that will allow the platform to suggest a level.

Next, investors choose a goal from eight selections and provide a customized name for the goal. They then pick either a market-tracking or sustainability-focused portfolio. Before completing the sign-up, they receive a targeted asset allocation, ranging from conservative to aggressive, based꧂ on their questionnaire answers.

Finally, they choose the account type and fund the account with the required $1,000 minimum (or more). Chat and phone customer service are readily available throughout the setup process. 

Merrill Guided Inve🌜sting clients can choose from a variety of accoun💝t types:

• Individual and joint brokerage accounts
• Custodial: Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA) and 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Uniform Gift to Minors Act (UGMA) accounts
• Retirement: Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:simplified employee pension (SEP), SIMPLE IRA, 401(k) to IRA rollover

Goal Planning

Merrill client𝓰s can cho💟ose from the following eight goals:

• Retirement
• General Investing
• Home
• Education
• Family Support 
• Travel
• Special Occasion
• Other Large Purchase

Growth simulations are available to evaluate the likelihood that clients can reach their goals. They t꧟hen have the ability to adjust their goals accordingly.

The tools and calculators enable users to plan for most major financial decisions, including retirement, college planning, and basic personal finance scenarios. The personal retirement calculator is great for those nearing🔯 or already in retirement, while the personal finance calculators encompas𓂃s cash flow and education planning tools. 

Ongoing goal monitoring tracks client progress and the probability of success. This gives investors the opportunity to adjust assumptions and/or contributions toward the goal, and can help ensure you will actually reach your goal. For more accurate goal tracking, you can add additional income sources and external accounts🤪 and track contributions.

Account Services

The online-only version of Merrill Guided Investing is fine for those who are younger an🍌d don’t yet require in-depth financial planning. It charges a lower 0.45% annual assets under management (AUM) fee and has a minimum investment of $1,000.

Investors seeking a robo-advisor plus a financial planner may benefit from the option to add an advisor to their online account. The advisory model requires a $20,000 minimum deposit and charges an annual 0.85% AUM fee.

Do-it-yourself (DIY) investors can also set up a self-directed investing account through 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Merrill Edge to complement their Merrill Guided I🍨nvesting account.

For Bank of America customers, one login enables the integration of banking, self-directed investing, and Merrill Guided Investing robo-advisory services. Auto deposits and transfers are seamless. There are approximately 3,700 Bank of America financial centers available for in-person assistance with any account-related questions. 

Cash Management

Merrill Guided Investing allocates some percentage of your portfolio to cash. Even if you select high-risk tolerance, a small percentage of your managed funds will be held in cash. This differs from other robo-advisors, which tend to invest all of your managed funds in the investment account and keep cash separately. With Merrill Guided Investing, interest paid o🐻n the cash balance is 4.11%. Obviously, Bank of America itself also offers a variety of cash accounts.

Portfolio Construction

Merrill Guided Investing portfolio construction goes beyond creating a portfolio of market-matching index funds. The company’s CIO directly oversees the proce🌸ss and uses both proprietary and external investment research to build portfolios that strive to outperform passive index fund portfolios. However, investment in individual stocks, let alone assets like cryptocurrency, is not available at🐟 Merrill Guided Investing.

All portfolio models a📖re offered at three risk levels: low, medium, and high. The online version of Merrill Guided Investing includes either m🐬arket-tracking or sustainability-focused portfolios.

Investment portfolios are constructed and managed using strategic and tactical asset allocations, which vary based on the user's specific goals, risk tolerance, financial situation, timeline, and expected returns, as well as current and projected future market conditions.

In order to avoid conflicts of interest, the company does not use any proprietary funds. This shows concern for transparency and ethical management.

Available Assets

Portfolio Customization

Clients have a limited ability to customize their portfolios with Merrill Guided Investing. They cannot select specific assets, although they do have the ability to exclude a particular fund.

Portfolio Management

Merrill Guided Investing strategies differ from typical robo-advisors in that they are actively managed. Portfolios are not rebalanced according to a s♔chedule but rather based on market conditions and the chance to take advantage of higher-return or lower-risk investment opportunities.

Accounts are also monitored for adherence to the client’s preferred asset all🏅ocation and rebalanced when appropriate. Importantly, Merrill Guided Investing allows to take into consideration outside accounts and holdings when tailoring your investment strategy. This advantage is still uncommon among robo-advisors.

The personal dashboard displays clients' progress toward their financial goals. The graphic shows how much they've contributed to the goal, how much remains, and whether they're on track or not.

Merrill requires that clients complete a periodic review to ensure that their portfolio remains aligned with their goals. As goals, timelines, and risk tolerance change, so will their asset allocation.

User Experience

Desktop

The user experience with Merrill Guided Investing is excellent. The desktop platform is easy to navigate, and the tools, insights, information, and resources are among the best in the robo-advisor industry. The dashboard shows goal progress, acc🦩ount value, activity, market outlooks, asset allocation, and investment returns, and offers easy access to all the platform resources. Any questions can be efficiently handled via chat or 24/7 customer service.

Mobile

The mobile app, available for iOS and Android, is incredibly powerful and includes all of the desktop features. Additionally, clients can also access their Merrill accounts from the Bank of America app. The planning tools꧟ are accessible on mobile, as is t🐲he Guided Investing dashboard. Robo-advisor users can track account details, strategy, activity, performance, and goal progress.

The robust in-app features incඣlude all of ꦕthe previously discussed desktop features, plus:

• Market news
• Check deposit
• Fund transfer
• Spending and budgeting
• Guidance and retirement planning

Customer Service

Merrill Guided Investing shines when it comes to customer service, thanks to its integration with Merrill Edge and Bank of America. With 24/7 phone customer service, you can alwa🌳ys co🅺unt on dedicated human assistance.

Although trained customer service representatives are available, only Premium Merrill Guided Investing clients can speak with a financial advisor. The website’s Help & Support page contains plentifulꦦ FAQs and other comprehensive sources of information that are a useful addition to the 24/7 phone customer service.

• 24/7 phone support (wait times of three minutes or more at peak periods)
• Comprehensive FAQs and support center
• Premium Merrill Guided Investing clients can speak with a financial advisor
  

Security

A✨s a member of the Bank of America and Merri🐓ll Lynch families, users can expect bank-level security:

• Two-factor authentication
• Encrypted messaging for communications with advisors
• Cash in bank accounts insured up to the legal limit by the FDIC
• Securities insured by SIPC and additional coverage with Lloyd's of London

Education

Merrill Guided Investing is highly regarded for its strong educational offering. This resource includes white papers, calculators, and courses, as well as high-quality webinars, videos, and articles. The educational content is categorized from beginner to advanced. Topics range from platform-related guides to information on assets and strategies. Investment topics include investment risk, tax-efficient investing, growth vs. value, sociallyꦛ responsible investing, and many others. The calculators for retirement, tax planning, and more can answer nearly all client questions.

Commissions and Fees

Similar to most robo-advisors, there are no trading fees. The annual investment management fee for the online-ꦆonly plan is 0.45% of AUM, assessed monthly. For those who would like to have access to financial advisors, the annual charge is 0.85% of AUM.

The Preferred Rewards 𝄹program can lower fees if you qualify. The higher your combined account balance with Merrill and Bank of A🔴merica, the larger the discount on the annual fee. The tiered Preferred Rewards program goes far beyond the Merrill Guided Investing fee discounts and includes better rates on loans and other perks. In addition to the annual AUM account management fee, all mutual funds and ETFs charge expense ratios, which are paid to the specific investment fund companies.

To put the fees into perspective against competitors, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, for example, offers an option that is free of any management fees. Customers only pay the fund expense ratios. It also offers a premium version with access to a certified financial planner that does charge a one-time planning fee of $300, as well as a monthly management fee of $30.

The Bottom Line

Merrill Guided Investing is among the more feature-rich robo-advisors we have reviewed, but it hasn't innovated much in recent years. Tax-loss harvesting is still absent, as is crypto as an asset class. That said, Merrill Guided Investing is great for existing clients of Bank of America because of the add-on benefits associated with having all accounts in one financial ecosystem.

The balances of your accounts with Merrill and Bank of America count toward the Preferred Rewards program, which can lower the cost of Merrill Guided Investing and open up other perks. Merrill Guided Investing offers a hybrid model with access to a human advisor for a higher fee (0.85% AUM versus the standard fee of 0.45%), but its basic online offering is quite powerful and does an excellent job of taking external accounts into consideration for goal planning aಌnd tracking.

Merrill Guided Investing will also be attractive to investors seeking extensive educational resources. The 24/7 customer service is a plus that will be appreciated by those investors seeking a human touch within their robo-advisory, not to mention the 3,700+ Bank of America branches where Merrill clients can get in-person assistance. Human customer service is available even if you don't opt for the higher-fee, higher minimum balance hybrid version. Overall, however, the Merrill Guided Investing fees are definitely on the higher end, and investors will need to decide for themselves whether the extra features the platform offers are worth the upcharge.

How ♓Merrill Guided Investing Helps Yo🧸u Save Money on Taxes

Although Merrill Guided Investing does offer "tax-aware" portfolios that use tax-exempt components like municipal bond indexes, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:tax-loss harvesting remains notably absent from the platform. Tax-loss harvesting looks for unrealized losses that can be realized by selling an investment and replacing it with a comparable one to offset gains elsewhere in the portfolio.

How We Picked the Best Robo-Advisors

Providing readers with unbiased, comprehensive reviews of digital wealth management companies, more commonly known as robo-advisors, is a top priority of Investopedia. To collect data for our 2024 best robo-advisor awards and rankings, we sent a digital survey with 64 questions dir🅷ectly to each of the 21 companies we included in our rubric. Our team of researchers verified the survey responses and collected any missing data points through online research and conversations with each🐲 company directly. The data collection process took place from Jan. 8 to Feb. 9, 2024.

We then developed a quantitative model that scored each company to rate its performance across nine major categories and 59 criteria to find the best robo-advisors. The score for each company’s overall star rating is a🍨 weighted average of the criteria:

• Goal Planning - 21.00%
• Portfolio Contents - 17.00%
• Portfolio Management - 17.00%
• Fees - 15.00%
• Account Services - 10.00%
• Account Setup - 5.00%
• Customer Service - 5.00%
  
• Security & Education - 5.00%
• User Experience - 5.00%

Many of the companies we review for our projects grant our team of expert writers and editors access to live accounts so they can p𓂃erform hands-on testing. Robo-advisor companies allowed us to do this, as well.

Through this all-encompassing data collection and review process, Investopedia has provided you with an unbiased and thorough review of the top robo-advisors. Read more about 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:how we research🃏 and review 🌳robo-advisors.

The above material and content should not be considered to be a recommendation. Investing in digital assets is highly speculative and volatile, and only suitable for investors who are able to bear the risk of potential loss and experience sharp drawdowns. Digital assets are not legal tender and are not backed by the U.S. government. Digital assets are not subject to FDIC insurance or SIPC protections.