Show HN: Use wealthbot.io to easily setup your own portfolio management platform • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by vladko » Wed, Jun 03, 2015, 5:28 PM UTC

hughdbrown wrote: post #48

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.

the vagrant config is a little confusing at first glance.

note, this is a typical config file provisioned by puphpet ...

if you look closely not all of those packages are marked for installation. (install : 1/0) so we only use a faction of those listed. a basic lammp stack, i guess + some necessary php extensions.

p.s. as to why all the entries are there i guess it was easier to generate a file with everything and enable/disable various tools as needed. i.e. i decide to switch from apache to nginx change apache isntall = 0, nginx intall = 1..

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

#52

Post by vladko » Wed, Jun 03, 2015, 6:10 PM UTC

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…

just to add a little... in a grand scheme of things wealthbot.io is not very different from excel. (except we do a few more things, which relate to an RIA's daily workflow).

at the end of the day we will generate a trade file (or signal) but that's it, it's up to RIA to ensure that final decision is correct. i would say that we encourage people to look at the rebalancer logic, adjust/modify and be aware of the flow in the system.

plus there's is a portfolio accounting system which ensures accuracy in all transactions performed by the custodian.

it's exactly the opposite of what is going on in fintech world. we offer complete transparency... and although you could think of our rebalancer as an "advice giving" tool, in reality it simply calculates and adjusts out of balance holdings. the final financial advice is on the RIA, as it is today. we simply give them tools, which they don't have today to manage their clients/portfolios free of charge (open source).

if an RIA only wants to use an on-boarding portion of the product and do their rebalancing the way they like to do it, that's completely up to the end-user.

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

#53

Post by vladko » Wed, Jun 03, 2015, 6:15 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #49

geno149 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

that would be true for any public-facing text, which relates to financial advice. a good CFA (RIA) knows what to ask and how to ask, it's not really that complicated.

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

#54

Post by vladko » Wed, Jun 03, 2015, 6:19 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #50

vladko wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

definitely not.

but whenever you implement any financial software, you go through the same audits. whether you paid $1M for it or got it for free.

you do realize that most banks run on open source platforms (linux). and there are countless magento installations out there? to debate whether an open source alternative is viable to a closed-sourced model we'd have to travel back 20 years, when this debate was relevant.

and bashing free stuff, is like bashing free samples at the super market... feel free to move along.

cheers.

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

#55

Post by nerfhammer » Wed, Jun 03, 2015, 9:40 PM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #16

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…

> get a Vanguard LifeStrategy fund Struggle to think of many investment choices that this isn't the right answer to.

Taxes. Vanguard's LifeStrategy and Target Retirement funds were not meant to be tax efficient.

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

#56

Post by nerfhammer » Wed, Jun 03, 2015, 9:42 PM UTC

geno149 wrote: post #44

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!

Yea, a bot that just runs your Vanguard account like betterment/wealthfront would but without their fees would provide a huge amount of value to people.

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

#57

Post by peteretep » Wed, Jun 03, 2015, 10:43 PM UTC

nerfhammer wrote: post #55

peteretep wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> get a Vanguard LifeStrategy fund Struggle to think of many investment choices that this isn't the right answer to.

Taxes. Vanguard's LifeStrategy and Target Retirement funds were not meant to be tax efficient.

Isn't that a function of the wrapper, rather than the fund? Both investments I have in Vanguard are entirely tax free...

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

#58

Post by vladko » Thu, Jun 04, 2015, 12:34 AM UTC

nerfhammer wrote: post #56

geno149 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Yea, a bot that just runs your Vanguard account like betterment/wealthfront would but without their fees would provide a huge amount of value to people.

that's kind of what wealthbot does...

you can set it up to manage your own portfolio. i.e. you can set yourself up as an RIA and a client of your own firm, the on-boarding process for both sides takes 45 min total. And if you are good enough with writing code you can script all your setup data (we have examples of that).. than setup is even faster.

Once that's done you can run the rebalancer on tolerance or quarterly (time-frame) basis to rebalance your own portfolio without any fees.

You'd only pay fees with your custodian if you decided to execute the trades proposed by the rebalancer.

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

#59

Post by pbreit » Thu, Jun 04, 2015, 5:08 AM UTC

nerfhammer wrote: post #55

peteretep wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> get a Vanguard LifeStrategy fund Struggle to think of many investment choices that this isn't the right answer to.

Taxes. Vanguard's LifeStrategy and Target Retirement funds were not meant to be tax efficient.

Still probably the best investment option for 99% of the population.

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

#60

Post by pbreit » Thu, Jun 04, 2015, 5:12 AM UTC

vladko wrote: post #54

pbreit wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

definitely not. but whenever you implement any financial software, you go through the same audits. whether you paid $1M for it or got it for free. you do realize that most banks run on open source platforms (linux). and there are countless magento installations out there? to debate whether an open source alternative is viable to a closed-sourced model we'd have to travel back 20 years, when this debate was relevant.…

Quite a bit different. There are very strict rules (in the US) about how RIAs, brokers, banks, etc can communicate with clients and prospective clients.