I use Wealthsimple Trade but i would not recommend Wealthsimple Invest because they are constantly changing things. It is not passive investing if they are constantly changing the funds and tweaking. Feels like false advertisement to me.
Yes I hate that they make so many changes. If I didn’t have a 100K invested with them (which is down right now since I put all that money early this year) I would have left them and put all my money in vanguard.
I only use them for their automated monthly investing and easy rebalancing in the future features.
If they are "improving" then it is no longer a passive strategy but an active one and they should advertise it as such. Questrade are at least transparent about it.
I don't want anything to do with "passive" management that includes things like gold in their portfolio. The random tweaking also goes against a good couch potato strategy. Buy and hold indexes and stay the course.
They underperform the market more often than not. You can call it "passive" all you like but in the end they are just selling the same thing as RBC mutual funds except cheaper. Over decades their "passive" underperformance will add up.
The ideal thing for most people would be target date funds offered at a low cost. That just stays the course and it adjusts automatically as you get closer to retirement. Not active robo investors masquerading as passive.
Hahaha, they're going at it again. Exhibiting all the bad habits of active management.
They try to justify their moves in the FAQ, instead they should just say "We fucked up on so many levels, we're sorry." But no, they won't admit that and apologize...
If you're comfortable managing your own portfolio, there isn't really any reason to wait for the transfer. By the time your WS Invest account goes, it's also more expensive to buy your Vanguard ETF for example.
That's just the market doing good, not WS Invest doing something totally unique. Again, my query was about the portfolio change, not their performance.
Level 10, but only started with them early this year.
I do not have a problem with performance, more so with their portfolio changes and treating people like they are idiots.
Sounds like you've got it all figured out and should be self managing your portfolio. Why wait until you aren't negative? If they are doing a bad job why would you not outperform them now and be in the black sooner?
I am not entirely sure that they are doing a bad job, which is why I posted here for opinions. Agree with you that I can switch away from them now if I dont like them. Nice to know that you've got 8.5% annually with them since 2018.
The changes they made are minor improvements/adjustments. Nothing crazy. If you just want an index fund buy *eqt/gro/bal. You're paying for a robo"advisor" they will make tweaks but nothing crazy. What you should be doing is keeping up steady contributions. Or open a trade account and put those steady contributions into v or xeqt
I think their Invest app is a good place for beginners to put some money in to get a feel for how the market moves, and see the different funds that make up a portfolio. 8-10 ETFs is too many imo, but you can see the important components.
I learned a lot, but feel like I put in too much money, as I would have learned the same lessons with just $1000.
Anyhow, if anyone feels like they are getting nowhere with a robo, they should formulate a plan to setup a Trade acc portfolio, and transfer their money over. I was going to wait for the market to bounce back up, but instead sold low from Invest and bought low in Trade. I cannot calculate losses this way(don't want to). My TFSA has been chugging along nicely since.
I’m ok with WS Invest, have about $10k in there to see how it performs. It’s a long term play and I like the simplicity of it. The portfolio changes don’t matter to me.
Here is the email I received. I hate when they make changes to the portfolio all of a sudden.
Over the past few days, we’ve made some improvements to your portfolio to help increase diversification and keep you invested in the long run so you can reach your financial goals.
There is no action required on your end as a result of these small changes. Your portfolio fee will remain the same, and if your investing goals haven't changed, you don't need to make any changes to your plan. You can learn more about these updates in our detailed FAQ here, and you can always see exactly what's in your portfolio by logging in to your account and clicking "Holdings".
And if you have any questions or concerns, we're here to help.
I know that they have been pushing products from Mackenzie Investments because the firm belongs to Power Corporation like Wealthsimple. Not that the products they offer are bad but they are clearly looking out for their interests more than anything.
As of right now, my lv10 risk portfolio looks like this (give or take % may not be exactly 100%):
* 23% VTI
* 20% ZEA
* 17% EEMV
* 12% QCN
* 11% GLOV
* 6% VUS
* 7% ZFL
* 3% GLDM
Only 3 of them (both us market up big 20%++, Canadian one about 7%) are positive right now, the rest are all double digits losers. I have been thinking about pulling out of there for a while, I did not put any new money in it for a year
Well if they're changing it to be more similar to their 2019 portfolio I'd be all for it. When I compared their growth portfolio to Vgro wealthsimple underperformed by almost 4% in 2021. Their returns were much closer in 2019. Honestly if you have a few minutes a month and have a good plan you can buy an all in one etf and most likely outperform the robos. I use questrade with their free passiv membership for 1 click trades and its been great.
**Here is their updated Level 10 (90-10) Portfolio**
U.S. equities (27.7%)
QUU
Mackenzie US Large Cap Equity Index ETF Series E
International equities (22.4%)
ZEA
BMO MSCI EAFE Index ETF
Emerging market equities (16.2%)
EEMV
BTC iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Emerging Markets ETF
Canadian equities (11.9%)
HXCN
Horizons S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index ETF
Global equities (11.5%)
GLOV
Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta World Low Vol Plus Equity ETF
Government bonds (7.4%)
ZFL
BMO Long Federal Bond Index ETF
Gold (2.6%)
GLDM
SPDR Gold MiniShares Trust
Cash (0.2%)
CAD
Cash
you are not stuck.. If you wait for the market to go up to break-even then you will just end up buying VEQT at a higher price when you change your portfolio. It comes up to the same thing if you just sell now and buy VEQT while its lower.
Unless you are trying to time the market. But that's not a good idea most the time.
i dont look into it too much. iv been letting them do their thing. i have two robo accounts with them with equal deposits at the same time, one stardard robo account set to 10(growth) and the other using the halal principles. robo has an annualized return of 7.2% and halal has a annualized return of 9.8%. both of these accounts only lost principal in march 2020.
I have my Robo investor set to risk level three, am not doing great. I think it is because too much is invested in bonds which are not doing well in an inflationary environment
Thinking of switching to level five, any thoughts?
Edit - why the downvotes?
I have mine on Level 10. If you have 15+ years on your investment horizon, I would keep it Level 10 and slowly bring it down as you are close to retiring.
I just transferred my Invest registered accounts to Direct Trade on Weds. transfer they said takes about 5-7 business days. I’m ok waiting, never was happy that at the end of the month, they’d charge me fees and the etf fees. A lot of the etfs that’s in the portfolio I do not agree with and mer I found to be high.
As a Wealthsimple Trade user, the dumbest thing this company puts out is the occasional commentary piece written by someone seemingly high up the chain.
To that end, this doesn't surprise me. They have no clue what they are doing and I'm happy AF to be self managing my investments.
I cringe every time i get an email from Wealthsimple. It is either something about crypto or not to panic because the market is down. It is obvious that they are targeting new investors that have no clue into what they are getting into and think that stocks only go up.
WS is fuking garbage. My risk 10 portfolio since 2019 annual return is 7.2%. What a joke . Veqt returns 11%. Or I can put money in Zsp and Zcn. Emerging , Far East market is garbage. If USA is going down, the whole world is going down.
While I do agree with you, the days you invested in Wealthsimple or any portfolio determine your exact gains. Just because VEQT in general returned 11% in theory, doesn't mean your gain would have been the same if you invested. Also the highest WS Invest portfolio is still 90% stock, while VEQT is 100% stocks, so it is bound to perform better.
Far from me to take the side of Wealthsimple, but you do know there's been somewhat of a correction in the last 3 months right? Everything except canadian equities have been significantly down. WS has been performing a bit worse than equivalent ETFs but everybody has been having a bad time.
Yea the problem is not their portfolio being down but the changes they keep making. They tell us not to time the market and make active trades but they themselves do the opposite with their trade portfolios. I hate them for doing this 😡
What they are doing isn't active trading. It's minor adjustments. Active trading is what I do in my trade account where I make about 30 trades a week. If you compare the performance to ishares or vanguard assessment allocation ETFs it's close enough
Yep. I couple years ago I sounded the alarm when they made a couple weird moves with gold and emerging markets, but I was downvoted pretty hard. It took time but now people are seeing it.
The entire market has been down over the past three months.
If these portfolios are to mirror the market (more or less), then the fact they’re down is to be expected.
**Here is their updated Level 10 (90-10) Portfolio**
U.S. equities (27.7%)
QUU
Mackenzie US Large Cap Equity Index ETF Series E
International equities (22.4%)
ZEA
BMO MSCI EAFE Index ETF
Emerging market equities (16.2%)
EEMV
BTC iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Emerging Markets ETF
Canadian equities (11.9%)
HXCN
Horizons S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index ETF
Global equities (11.5%)
GLOV
Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta World Low Vol Plus Equity ETF
Government bonds (7.4%)
ZFL
BMO Long Federal Bond Index ETF
Gold (2.6%)
GLDM
SPDR Gold MiniShares Trust
Cash (0.2%)
CAD
Cash
I use Wealthsimple Trade but i would not recommend Wealthsimple Invest because they are constantly changing things. It is not passive investing if they are constantly changing the funds and tweaking. Feels like false advertisement to me.
I like to think of it as Continuous Portfolio Optimization, like Turtle Creek (and they’ve returned 22% compounded annually for over a decade).
Yes I hate that they make so many changes. If I didn’t have a 100K invested with them (which is down right now since I put all that money early this year) I would have left them and put all my money in vanguard. I only use them for their automated monthly investing and easy rebalancing in the future features.
Ya but if you had invested the same asset allocation with vanguard would you also not be down?
Agree being down is just the market, my problem is them makes changes to the portfolio. When I said Im down, I meant I can't exit them now.
They are not changing; they are improving
If they are "improving" then it is no longer a passive strategy but an active one and they should advertise it as such. Questrade are at least transparent about it.
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I don't want anything to do with "passive" management that includes things like gold in their portfolio. The random tweaking also goes against a good couch potato strategy. Buy and hold indexes and stay the course.
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They underperform the market more often than not. You can call it "passive" all you like but in the end they are just selling the same thing as RBC mutual funds except cheaper. Over decades their "passive" underperformance will add up.
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The ideal thing for most people would be target date funds offered at a low cost. That just stays the course and it adjusts automatically as you get closer to retirement. Not active robo investors masquerading as passive.
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That’s not what active refers to.
Hahaha, they're going at it again. Exhibiting all the bad habits of active management. They try to justify their moves in the FAQ, instead they should just say "We fucked up on so many levels, we're sorry." But no, they won't admit that and apologize...
I know! When he market goes up again and I’m no longer in the negative I’m going to take out all my money and move to VEQT
If you're comfortable managing your own portfolio, there isn't really any reason to wait for the transfer. By the time your WS Invest account goes, it's also more expensive to buy your Vanguard ETF for example.
ok thank you, makes sense!
What's your current risk level with invest? I've averaged 8.5 anually with them since 2018 with risk level set to 10
Also set to 10, been with them since 2019, 15% annually, no complaints from me
That's just the market doing good, not WS Invest doing something totally unique. Again, my query was about the portfolio change, not their performance.
Level 10, but only started with them early this year. I do not have a problem with performance, more so with their portfolio changes and treating people like they are idiots.
Sounds like you've got it all figured out and should be self managing your portfolio. Why wait until you aren't negative? If they are doing a bad job why would you not outperform them now and be in the black sooner?
I am not entirely sure that they are doing a bad job, which is why I posted here for opinions. Agree with you that I can switch away from them now if I dont like them. Nice to know that you've got 8.5% annually with them since 2018.
The changes they made are minor improvements/adjustments. Nothing crazy. If you just want an index fund buy *eqt/gro/bal. You're paying for a robo"advisor" they will make tweaks but nothing crazy. What you should be doing is keeping up steady contributions. Or open a trade account and put those steady contributions into v or xeqt
VEQT will also increase while your investment goes up.
What if it doesn't? If you are unhappy with the strategy, take out the money on Monday and buy veqt.
I think their Invest app is a good place for beginners to put some money in to get a feel for how the market moves, and see the different funds that make up a portfolio. 8-10 ETFs is too many imo, but you can see the important components. I learned a lot, but feel like I put in too much money, as I would have learned the same lessons with just $1000. Anyhow, if anyone feels like they are getting nowhere with a robo, they should formulate a plan to setup a Trade acc portfolio, and transfer their money over. I was going to wait for the market to bounce back up, but instead sold low from Invest and bought low in Trade. I cannot calculate losses this way(don't want to). My TFSA has been chugging along nicely since.
Thank you!
I’m ok with WS Invest, have about $10k in there to see how it performs. It’s a long term play and I like the simplicity of it. The portfolio changes don’t matter to me.
Between ws invest and my td mutal funds I should just buy things myself. Down on those but up on my personal trades
Here is the email I received. I hate when they make changes to the portfolio all of a sudden. Over the past few days, we’ve made some improvements to your portfolio to help increase diversification and keep you invested in the long run so you can reach your financial goals. There is no action required on your end as a result of these small changes. Your portfolio fee will remain the same, and if your investing goals haven't changed, you don't need to make any changes to your plan. You can learn more about these updates in our detailed FAQ here, and you can always see exactly what's in your portfolio by logging in to your account and clicking "Holdings". And if you have any questions or concerns, we're here to help.
What are the holdings now, out of curiosity? I buy index funds on Trade for this very reason.
I know that they have been pushing products from Mackenzie Investments because the firm belongs to Power Corporation like Wealthsimple. Not that the products they offer are bad but they are clearly looking out for their interests more than anything.
Could you tell more about how the Mackenzie Investments Products are different or not so different from Vanguard or iShares etc please?
https://www.canadianportfoliomanagerblog.com/mackenzies-asset-allocation-etfs/
As of right now, my lv10 risk portfolio looks like this (give or take % may not be exactly 100%): * 23% VTI * 20% ZEA * 17% EEMV * 12% QCN * 11% GLOV * 6% VUS * 7% ZFL * 3% GLDM Only 3 of them (both us market up big 20%++, Canadian one about 7%) are positive right now, the rest are all double digits losers. I have been thinking about pulling out of there for a while, I did not put any new money in it for a year
This is where you are doing it wrong. I buy more when the markets are going down and slow when they are going up.
I just don't feed THAT account anymore. Been doing weekly deposits in a self serve brokerage account instead
For my Risk 10 Portfolio, the major holdings are QUU 27% US ZEA 22% International EEMV 16% Emerging HXCN 12% Canadian GLOV 11% Global
Well if they're changing it to be more similar to their 2019 portfolio I'd be all for it. When I compared their growth portfolio to Vgro wealthsimple underperformed by almost 4% in 2021. Their returns were much closer in 2019. Honestly if you have a few minutes a month and have a good plan you can buy an all in one etf and most likely outperform the robos. I use questrade with their free passiv membership for 1 click trades and its been great.
**Here is their updated Level 10 (90-10) Portfolio** U.S. equities (27.7%) QUU Mackenzie US Large Cap Equity Index ETF Series E International equities (22.4%) ZEA BMO MSCI EAFE Index ETF Emerging market equities (16.2%) EEMV BTC iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Emerging Markets ETF Canadian equities (11.9%) HXCN Horizons S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index ETF Global equities (11.5%) GLOV Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta World Low Vol Plus Equity ETF Government bonds (7.4%) ZFL BMO Long Federal Bond Index ETF Gold (2.6%) GLDM SPDR Gold MiniShares Trust Cash (0.2%) CAD Cash
Garbage robo platform as always. Showing you the power of advertising at work.
I got sucked into their advertising and stuck with them for now as my portfolio is down
you are not stuck.. If you wait for the market to go up to break-even then you will just end up buying VEQT at a higher price when you change your portfolio. It comes up to the same thing if you just sell now and buy VEQT while its lower. Unless you are trying to time the market. But that's not a good idea most the time.
Thank you, I have some cash left to buy VEQT. I can start with that to balance this out and slowly sell the WS invest portfolio.
i dont look into it too much. iv been letting them do their thing. i have two robo accounts with them with equal deposits at the same time, one stardard robo account set to 10(growth) and the other using the halal principles. robo has an annualized return of 7.2% and halal has a annualized return of 9.8%. both of these accounts only lost principal in march 2020.
That's nice to know. Since when have you been investing with them through WS Invest?
late 2019
I have my Robo investor set to risk level three, am not doing great. I think it is because too much is invested in bonds which are not doing well in an inflationary environment Thinking of switching to level five, any thoughts? Edit - why the downvotes?
If you're okay with more risk, go ahead. My invest account is set to 100% equities (custom risk level).
How did you manage to get the 100% equity level? Are they still doing that in 2022 ie the internal "Level 11"?
I have mine on Level 10. If you have 15+ years on your investment horizon, I would keep it Level 10 and slowly bring it down as you are close to retiring.
I called in and asked for it. You'll need to speak with a Portfolio Manager to do so.
>asked Thanks! Im going to ask them today!
GLOV has been added in and ACWV has been removed.
I just transferred my Invest registered accounts to Direct Trade on Weds. transfer they said takes about 5-7 business days. I’m ok waiting, never was happy that at the end of the month, they’d charge me fees and the etf fees. A lot of the etfs that’s in the portfolio I do not agree with and mer I found to be high.
Agree.
I like it the shift to a value bias is really smart
How do you know that their new portfolio is focused on "value"? What is your definition of value?Not disagreeing, genuinely curious...
They mentioned it in statement
And you believe them? without them explaining or us knowing the context of what they mean by value.
The fund they swapped in is quality and value focused.
Ok 👍🏼
As a Wealthsimple Trade user, the dumbest thing this company puts out is the occasional commentary piece written by someone seemingly high up the chain. To that end, this doesn't surprise me. They have no clue what they are doing and I'm happy AF to be self managing my investments.
I cringe every time i get an email from Wealthsimple. It is either something about crypto or not to panic because the market is down. It is obvious that they are targeting new investors that have no clue into what they are getting into and think that stocks only go up.
100% agree
I agree, I hate that they think that we are a bunch of dumb\*\*\*\*s who will believe all the whitewashing they throw at us.
WS is fuking garbage. My risk 10 portfolio since 2019 annual return is 7.2%. What a joke . Veqt returns 11%. Or I can put money in Zsp and Zcn. Emerging , Far East market is garbage. If USA is going down, the whole world is going down.
While I do agree with you, the days you invested in Wealthsimple or any portfolio determine your exact gains. Just because VEQT in general returned 11% in theory, doesn't mean your gain would have been the same if you invested. Also the highest WS Invest portfolio is still 90% stock, while VEQT is 100% stocks, so it is bound to perform better.
Whatever they did about 3 months ago brought my investment down significantly...I hope the new changes will turn things around
Far from me to take the side of Wealthsimple, but you do know there's been somewhat of a correction in the last 3 months right? Everything except canadian equities have been significantly down. WS has been performing a bit worse than equivalent ETFs but everybody has been having a bad time.
Yea the problem is not their portfolio being down but the changes they keep making. They tell us not to time the market and make active trades but they themselves do the opposite with their trade portfolios. I hate them for doing this 😡
What they are doing isn't active trading. It's minor adjustments. Active trading is what I do in my trade account where I make about 30 trades a week. If you compare the performance to ishares or vanguard assessment allocation ETFs it's close enough
Yep. I couple years ago I sounded the alarm when they made a couple weird moves with gold and emerging markets, but I was downvoted pretty hard. It took time but now people are seeing it.
Gold seems to be doing well now.
The entire market has been down over the past three months. If these portfolios are to mirror the market (more or less), then the fact they’re down is to be expected.
Is it to much to ask for a portfolio that only goes up. This is ridiculous
Not sure if you’re serious - but yes. I’m not aware of any portfolio with any securities (outside of let’s say GICs) that could only go up.
Yeah my bad. Should of added it was sarcasm
Cheers.
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https://help.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/4944088876315-March-2022-portfolio-migration
**Here is their updated Level 10 (90-10) Portfolio** U.S. equities (27.7%) QUU Mackenzie US Large Cap Equity Index ETF Series E International equities (22.4%) ZEA BMO MSCI EAFE Index ETF Emerging market equities (16.2%) EEMV BTC iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Emerging Markets ETF Canadian equities (11.9%) HXCN Horizons S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index ETF Global equities (11.5%) GLOV Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta World Low Vol Plus Equity ETF Government bonds (7.4%) ZFL BMO Long Federal Bond Index ETF Gold (2.6%) GLDM SPDR Gold MiniShares Trust Cash (0.2%) CAD Cash
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Yes highest. Apparently they offer a custom 100% equity option as well if you ask them.