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Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform

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Re: Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform

#41

Post by vladko »

zo1 wrote: post #21
tunesmith wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been rebalancing religiously every quarter, sector-balanced low-fee mutual funds etc. Lifetime APY so far, 2.5% . S&P500 APY over same time period about 8.3% . Grumble.

Why is no one considering investing offshore? Is it really that risky? I've seen some ridiculous returns on offshore funds. Have a look at some of the Southern African funds (though it does include non-SouthAfrican funds as well): http://www.morningstar.co.za/

purely from a technical standpoint for wealthbot.io the challenge is acceptance of these securities by custodians.

for example our platform doesn't really care which security it works with whether it's a stock, and EFT or bitcoin it doesn't matter.

the problem is finding the financial custodian that will execute your trades using the said currency. we did have real interest in someone supplementing their portfolio with bitcoins... but we can't find a clearing house/custodian that would execute relevant trades for us.

if there is an international custodian that we can hook into to work with securities from other countries, it's a no brainer.

that's why open source wins. we are not restricted by any regulation or market conditions. if the technology exists and we can hook into it, it's possible.

Re: Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform

#42

Post by vladko »

UserRights wrote: post #37
vladko wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

upgrading symfony is one of the key things we are working on right now. don't think of the demo as production, it's just a test server with some dummy data, where you can play around with features of webo. as open source projects we welcome all the help and as many pull requests as possible :)

Would you like to publish the demo data to the repo as well, so we can test this app locally with some relevant data loaded? Thanks!

it's available.. it's actually loaded for you by vagrant as fixtures..

the actual command it runs is: doctrine:fixtures:load

(which are in the Fixtures bundle).

the script which setups the demo data is located in vagrant/puphpet/files/exec-once

if you don't use vagrant you'll need to run that sort of setup manually

Re: Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform

#43

Post by MikeTV »

Does this hook up to my brokerage account and perform rebalancing and tax-loss harvesting a la Betterment/Wealthfront? It looks like it might, but with extra layers of complication to jump through first since I'm both pseudo-RIA and client. A step-by-step guide or "manage my own funds only" configuration would be helpful.

Re: Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform

#44

Post by geno149 »

MikeTV wrote: post #43

Does this hook up to my brokerage account and perform rebalancing and tax-loss harvesting a la Betterment/Wealthfront? It looks like it might, but with extra layers of complication to jump through first since I'm both pseudo-RIA and client. A step-by-step guide or "manage my own funds only" configuration would be helpful.

Mike, these are great ideas, we definitely want to make it easier for users to setup their own account.

Just so you know, our roadmap is public - https://trello.com/b/klhsT5Xj/wealthbot-io-roadmap-and-ideas

and you can suggest new feature ideas here - https://trello.com/b/klhsT5Xj/wealthbot-io-roadmap-and-ideas

Thanks!

Re: Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform

#45

Post by geno149 »

vladko wrote: post #42
UserRights wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you like to publish the demo data to the repo as well, so we can test this app locally with some relevant data loaded? Thanks!

it's available.. it's actually loaded for you by vagrant as fixtures.. the actual command it runs is: doctrine:fixtures:load (which are in the Fixtures bundle). the script which setups the demo data is located in vagrant/puphpet/files/exec-once if you don't use vagrant you'll need to run that sort of setup manually

And the actual data is here - https://github.com/wealthbot-io/wealthbot/tree/master/src/We...

Here's some more info on working with Symfony's fixtures bundle - http://symfony.com/doc/current/bundles/DoctrineFixturesBundl...

Re: Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform

#46

Post by tjsix »

geno149 wrote: post #38
tjsix wrote: post #35

Having spent 6 years as a fully licensed Financial/Investment advisor as firms both large and small (independent), I can say that while I think this is a cool project, marketing it towards investment advisors likely isn't going to get much traction. This is because 99% of advisors (in the US) already have access to tools like this, except much more in depth and integrated with their trading systems. It's in every bro…

Are you saying all software used by RIAs has do be vetted and audited by FINRA or a CRCP? I don't believe this to be true. We don't offer advice, only code. Could you point me to a few custodians or broker/dealers that provide portfolio management & rebalancing software for free? We haven't found any, but def don't have the same experience as you, so maybe we're just missing something.

No, I'm not saying software used by advisors HAS to be vetted. I'm saying that I don't know a single compliance officer that would green light a piece of software that provides any type of financial analysis, or recommendations to be used by their company as a whole without it being audited. Due to regulations, the risk is just too high. Now whether the individual advisors use it on their own is a different story. But the main issue there is that there are already an obnoxious number of channels, apps, systems that advisors have to use, the last thing most want to do is add another system into the mix, unless that system greatly simplifies things and integrates into their existing systems somehow, it probably isn't going to happen.

You're not offering advice, but you're offering the code which generates recommendations on position allocations. Any recommendation is considered 'advice' by FINRA and has to follow strict suitability requirements. Whether or not this would require any registration, licensing, etc on your part I have no idea, but it's definitely something I'd check into just to be safe. In general as long as you're not charging in some way for said advice there's no FINRA requirements, BUT that doesn't mean there wouldn't be any liability.

Every broker/dealer has their own management software/platform for client accounts, some more comprehensive than others. Though I don't know any of them that allow use by the general public, you have be be a registered rep of their firm to use them. The reason you don't see them publicly available is because of regulatory requirements regarding suitability for recommendations. Though companies like Fidelity and Schwab have some pretty in-depth tools for account management on their sites.

Re: Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform

#47

Post by geno149 »

tjsix wrote: post #46
geno149 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying all software used by RIAs has do be vetted and audited by FINRA or a CRCP? I don't believe this to be true. We don't offer advice, only code. Could you point me to a few custodians or broker/dealers that provide portfolio management & rebalancing software for free? We haven't found any, but def don't have the same experience as you, so maybe we're just missing something.

No, I'm not saying software used by advisors HAS to be vetted. I'm saying that I don't know a single compliance officer that would green light a piece of software that provides any type of financial analysis, or recommendations to be used by their company as a whole without it being audited. Due to regulations, the risk is just too high. Now whether the individual advisors use it on their own is a different story. Bu…

I see what you're saying. Agreed, there are barriers to entry and the market is competitive.

I think one place we haven't been clear yet is what wealthbot.io does. He doesn't actually generate recommendations on position allocations. He is a platform for advisors to set up their own risk questionnaire and tie that risk questionnaire to a portfolio of the advisors creation.

Questionnaire shows risk rating = 20? Assign portfolio with risk rating = 20

It's up to the advisor to create a risk profile questionnaire and the portfolios.

Otherwise, I think we're on the same page. This is a tough regulatory market and there are a lot of (confusing) options out there for advisors.

Re: Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform

#48

Post by hughdbrown »

The technology stack of this application gives me pause, if I am reading the included vagrantfile correctly: ruby and python and php; nginx and apache2; mysql and postgresql and sqlite and mongodb; redis and rabbitmq. Why so many overlapping choices? And I tend to think that the whole vagrant + puppet installation would be way faster and simpler just using docker.

Re: Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform

#49

Post by pbreit »

geno149 wrote: post #24
pbreit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't like being critical but I think this is just kind of silly (at least for US citizens). For example, first survey question: are you "Interested in experiencing dramatic short term losses for better returns?". "Interested"? Really? "Dramatic"? Is that just unfortunate word choice or is this thing just not legit? First of all, Betterment and Wealthfront are good companies. If "startups" concern you, check…

I agree with you - that wording is unfortunate. That being said, better to think of the risk profile questions in the demo as "dummy data". And it's pretty easy to change. Go to Advisor -> Proposals -> Edit and update the questions. Here's a gif - http://i.imgur.com/DsZx51m.gif What's even cooler, thought, is that this "dummy data" is loaded with fixtures. Meaning we can update it and next time you or I install wealt…

That also makes me think this is a potential legal nightmare for RIAs using it. Those survey questions you see on other sites (and pretty much all the text on the page) has gone through a ridiculous amount of legal review before it goes live.

Re: Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform

#50

Post by pbreit »

vladko wrote: post #31
pbreit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't like being critical but I think this is just kind of silly (at least for US citizens). For example, first survey question: are you "Interested in experiencing dramatic short term losses for better returns?". "Interested"? Really? "Dramatic"? Is that just unfortunate word choice or is this thing just not legit? First of all, Betterment and Wealthfront are good companies. If "startups" concern you, check…

you are reading slightly too much into it. 1. please realize that this is an open source project, so every single line of text or code can be changed to your liking. (not to mention that these are simply sample questions, and any end-user can edit them to be as complex or simple as they like). I can just as well ask your feeling about sky-diving and judge your risk tolerance based on that. 2. You have to understand t…

RIAs would be nuts to use this as it has gone through virtually zero legal/regulatory review. I dislike legal as much as the next guy but when it comes to managing other people's money, the legal/regulatory environment is exceedingly strict. You can't just pick up some random software off GitHub and start using it.
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