Vanguard Digital Advisor appears to be live

[CyberBob]

At least for accumulators. The retired investor portion still appears to be coming in the future.

https://investor.vanguard.com/financial ... Adv:Advice

[Eagle33]

We'll invest your cash** in a portfolio of Vanguard ETFs® for a minimum of $3,000 with an advisory fee** of about 0.15% of your Digital Advisor balance.

Bogleheads need to know the cost.

[stan1]

Says $4.50 per $3000 invested so 15 basis points on top of fund expense ratios.

[Dominic]

15 basis points isn't bad at all. Depending on what the asset allocations look like, it might be worthwhile.

[mroe800]

**Actual costs may vary. Vanguard Digital Advisor charges a 0.20% annual gross advisory fee to manage Vanguard Brokerage Accounts. However, we'll credit you for the revenues that The Vanguard Group, Inc. ("VGI"), or its affiliates receive from the securities in your managed portfolio (i.e., at least that portion of the expense ratios of the Vanguard funds held in your portfolio that VGI or its affiliates receive). Vanguard's goal is to charge you approximately 0.15% of your Digital Advisor balance annually to manage your portfolio. The combined annual costs of enrolling in Vanguard Digital Advisor and investing in Vanguard funds in that managed portfolio will be 0.20%. For more information, see the Vanguard Digital Advisor brochure.

Brochure here: https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/vangu ... ochure.pdf

Would be interested if this could efficiently TLH for me in taxable, that could move me back from Fidelity for taxable.

[asset_chaos]

If they had recorded Mr Bogle's voice elements, it would definitely be worth the $4.50 a year in order during market stress or overexuberence to get a phone call from Jack saying "stay the course asset_chaos" or something else wise and pithy.

[boyohead]

I'm looking into it right now. They offer five "risk attitudes" ranging from very aggressive to very conservative to help determine your asset allocation / glide path to and through retirement but none of the five options mirrors the target retirement funds.

[Cheez-It Guy]

If they had recorded Mr Bogle's voice elements, it would definitely be worth the $4.50 a year in order during market stress or overexuberence to get a phone call from Jack saying "stay the course asset_chaos" or something else wise and pithy.

You could set this up for yourself, or something similar with YouTube audio clippings for free.

[jocdoc]

Reading their pdf describing the service there doesn't appear to be true tax loss harvesting per se, just tax minimization: using minTax cost basis as describe below from their pdf page 8.

The MinTax cost basis method is generally designed to minimize tax impact and lower an individual’s tax burden by identifying selective units or quantities, also referred to as lots, of securities to sell in any sale transaction (including re balancing) based on specific ordering rules. In many cases, the MinTax cost basis method will minimize the tax impact to you of a transaction but it may not do so in every case.

They state they only use Total stock market index fund and total international stock market index as well as total bond and international bond. No mention of muni bonds in taxable accounts. pages 5-6.

Underwhelming as a service without muni bonds and tax loss harvesting.

[Explorer]

I just tried to take a spin...and ran into the following conditions which made NONE OF MY CURRENT accounts eligible...(bold conditions)

All accounts that you’d like Digital Advisor to manage need to meet the following criteria:

Your account must be one of the Vanguard Brokerage account types eligible for management (Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Individual taxable account) or a 401(k) plan for which your plan sponsor has adopted Digital Advisor.
Assets within the brokerage account must be in your Settlement Fund, similar to being in cash.
You must have a minimum balance of $3,000 within the brokerage account, or $5 within the eligible 401(k) account.
Your account must be added to your retirement goal.
Joint taxable accounts are currently not eligible for management.

[Kitty Telltales]

I just tried to take a spin...and ran into the following conditions which made NONE OF MY CURRENT accounts eligible...(bold conditions)

All accounts that you’d like Digital Advisor to manage need to meet the following criteria:

Your account must be one of the Vanguard Brokerage account types eligible for management (Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Individual taxable account) or a 401(k) plan for which your plan sponsor has adopted Digital Advisor.
Assets within the brokerage account must be in your Settlement Fund, similar to being in cash.
You must have a minimum balance of $3,000 within the brokerage account, or $5 within the eligible 401(k) account.
Your account must be added to your retirement goal.
Joint taxable accounts are currently not eligible for management.

I just got to this point of the enrollment "Assets within the brokerage account must be in your Settlement Fund, similar to being in cash." and I can't make myself pull the trigger. The entire account balance needs to be in cash before they offer me their advise? Or am I understanding this incorrectly? Also, I would like to add the amount to be advised on that I have in an external IRA account, but I don't want to link it, rather just tell them what is in the account.

[grabiner]

I just tried to take a spin...and ran into the following conditions which made NONE OF MY CURRENT accounts eligible...(bold conditions)

Assets within the brokerage account must be in your Settlement Fund, similar to being in cash.

This is a serious problem with a taxable account. You would have to sell all your holdings and pay capital-gains tax, even if the advisor wants to buy some of them back.

[Explorer]

I just tried to take a spin...and ran into the following conditions which made NONE OF MY CURRENT accounts eligible...(bold conditions)

All accounts that you’d like Digital Advisor to manage need to meet the following criteria:

Your account must be one of the Vanguard Brokerage account types eligible for management (Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Individual taxable account) or a 401(k) plan for which your plan sponsor has adopted Digital Advisor.
Assets within the brokerage account must be in your Settlement Fund, similar to being in cash.
You must have a minimum balance of $3,000 within the brokerage account, or $5 within the eligible 401(k) account.
Your account must be added to your retirement goal.
Joint taxable accounts are currently not eligible for management.

I just got to this point of the enrollment "Assets within the brokerage account must be in your Settlement Fund, similar to being in cash." and I can't make myself pull the trigger. The entire account balance needs to be in cash before they offer me their advise? Or am I understanding this incorrectly? Also, I would like to add the amount to be advised on that I have in an external IRA account, but I don't want to link it, rather just tell them what is in the account.

If you really want to try the digital advisor, just open another account (of the same type) and move $3,000 into it. That will work.

[Kitty Telltales]

I just tried to take a spin...and ran into the following conditions which made NONE OF MY CURRENT accounts eligible...(bold conditions)

All accounts that you’d like Digital Advisor to manage need to meet the following criteria:

Your account must be one of the Vanguard Brokerage account types eligible for management (Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Individual taxable account) or a 401(k) plan for which your plan sponsor has adopted Digital Advisor.
Assets within the brokerage account must be in your Settlement Fund, similar to being in cash.
You must have a minimum balance of $3,000 within the brokerage account, or $5 within the eligible 401(k) account.
Your account must be added to your retirement goal.
Joint taxable accounts are currently not eligible for management.

I just got to this point of the enrollment "Assets within the brokerage account must be in your Settlement Fund, similar to being in cash." and I can't make myself pull the trigger. The entire account balance needs to be in cash before they offer me their advise? Or am I understanding this incorrectly? Also, I would like to add the amount to be advised on that I have in an external IRA account, but I don't want to link it, rather just tell them what is in the account.

If you really want to try the digital advisor, just open another account (of the same type) and move $3,000 into it. That will work.

I had just this week transferred a Roth IRA from another bank to combine with a Roth IRA at Vanguard so I wanted to reshuffle what was in this account anyway and could use it as a test of Vanguard Digital Advisor. Following the steps to enroll, I was able to see their recommendation before accepting the final enrollment. The recommendation was along the lines of Vanguard LifeStrategy fund for my age group, which is not what I had in mind for my Roth. The recommendation didn’t seem to consider the asset allocation of my other accounts at Vanguard or outside of Vanguard (because it’s not possible to add this info without linking the account). It seems that the only convenience for enrolling is that Vanguard will periodically rebalance. In that case one could just use the appropriate LifesStrategy fund. Or am I misunderstanding method for making their recommendation?

Thanks for your input!

[Kitty Telltales]

I just tried to take a spin...and ran into the following conditions which made NONE OF MY CURRENT accounts eligible...(bold conditions)

Assets within the brokerage account must be in your Settlement Fund, similar to being in cash.

This is a serious problem with a taxable account. You would have to sell all your holdings and pay capital-gains tax, even if the advisor wants to buy some of them back.

They do highlight that selling in the taxable account would incur a taxable transaction, as they also highlighted that it would not be taxable in the IRA accounts. I believe that their recommendation for all accounts would end up being similar to an age appropriate LifeStrategy fund mix.