What Is A Schwab Intelligent Portfolio?

[Leesbro63]

I'm helping a widowed relative who is 76. Her recently departed husband, 83, "handled everything". She is intelligent but financially clueless. She has a very small IRA (about $7500) that her husband handled that's all in a "Schwab Intelligent Portfolio". All Schwab, Vanguard and iShares ETFs. I'm thinking about liquidating it and combining with with a much larger IRA that she just received as beneficiary from her deceased husband. I guess there isn't much to it, but I'm just wondering what exactly is a "Schwab Intelligent Portfolio"? It's not clear why the husband set this up for her...he left no details about anything, which is a whole bigger story. But what is this?

[toddthebod]

I'm helping a widowed relative who is 76. Her recently departed husband, 83, "handled everything". She is intelligent but financially clueless. She has a very small IRA (about $7500) that her husband handled that's all in a "Schwab Intelligent Portfolio". All Schwab, Vanguard and iShares ETFs. I'm thinking about liquidating it and combining with with a much larger IRA that she just received as beneficiary from her deceased husband. I guess there isn't much to it, but I'm just wondering what exactly is a "Schwab Intelligent Portfolio"? It's not clear why the husband set this up for her...he left no details about anything, which is a whole bigger story. But what is this?

It's automatic rebalancing. In a taxable account you can set up automatic tax loss harvesting. You can also set up automatic income, where they liquidate and distribute a fixed "paycheck" every month.

[MnD]

It's a relatively decent robo-advisory service to allocate among low cost ETF's.
$5000 minimum so the account qualifies.
https://intelligent.schwab.com/

That balance wouldn't qualify her to have Schwab Intelligent Portfolio Premium which would keep the robo advisor for asset allocation and add a financial plan prepared by a CFP for a one-time flat fee $300 and unlimited access to them going forward for $30 a month. That service requires a $25K balance.
https://www.schwab.com/intelligent-portfolios-premium

Instead of nixing the Intelligent Portfolio she might consider merging the accounts and upgrading it to the Premium service.
It's seem like a good match for someone who is older, intelligent but not financially savvy/interested.

It's currently my leading contender for what to do if i kick the bucket and it is in my list of todo's for my spouse in that event.
She's aware of it, has the list of todo's and she agrees that it would be a good match for her needs.

[Leesbro63]

It's a relatively decent robo-advisory service to allocate among low cost ETF's.
$5000 minimum so the account qualifies.
https://intelligent.schwab.com/

That balance wouldn't qualify her to have Schwab Intelligent Portfolio Premium which would keep the robo advisor for asset allocation and add a financial plan prepared by a CFP for a one-time flat fee $300 and unlimited access to them going forward for $30 a month. That service requires a $25K balance.
https://www.schwab.com/intelligent-portfolios-premium

Instead of nixing the Intelligent Portfolio she might consider merging the accounts and upgrading it to the Premium service.
It's seem like a good match for someone who is older, intelligent but not financially savvy/interested.

It's currently my leading contender for what to do if i kick the bucket and it is in my list of todo's for my spouse in that event.
She's aware of it, has the list of todo's and she agrees that it would be a good match for her needs.

Good idea but no. The larger IRA is invested almost all in fixed income and I won’t change that. At age 76, she has never owned any (or not much) stocks or equity funds, other than this. I’ll liquidate this small portfolio and roll it into the larger IRA and buy more fixed income.

[livesoft]

II would guess that maybe his past reason for using the Schwab Intelligent Portfolio in a small separate IRA was just to try it out as that "service" was one of the first robo-advisors. What was it's overall asset allocation, 80% fixed income and 20% equity? Or something else?

[Leesbro63]

II would guess that maybe his past reason for using the Schwab Intelligent Portfolio in a small separate IRA was just to try it out as that "service" was one of the first robo-advisors. What was it's overall asset allocation, 80% fixed income and 20% equity? Or something else?

There is no actual "stated" allocation that I can see. But it appears to be 60/40 from the assets in the account. I think you may be correct that this was some sort of "trial". The deceased husband was not 100% well in the past 10 years or so. I'm guessing that someone at Schwab suggested this. From what I can see, this wasn't a bad thing. But at this point this small account is a nuisance. It just makes sense to me to sell all holdings, have Schwab roll this small IRA into the larger Schwab IRA, and just buy a fixed income instrument, similar to what is already in the larger IRA. The widow doesn't understand "stocks" and the risk, at age 76, of a stock melt down not recovering quickly seems greater than any advantage of owning equities that perhaps go up. The bad news is that the husband left no instructions, no passwords, no information whatsoever about anything. He insisted, despite being on hospice, that he was recovering. And the widow is clueless, (but not dumb as she IS understanding what I am finding and explaining). The good news is that slowly we are figuring it all out and there doesn't appear to be anything crazy-bad or crazy-timely. She did find 2021 and 2022 tax returns, which is very helpful. I'm guessing that there might be at least a minor surprise when the tax documents arrive for 2023 in early 2024. All he had to do was create one master page with account information and passwords. Most Bogleheads won't leave survivors with this problem, but this does drive home to me the importance of leaving good information for survivors. He did, at least, have the beneficiary designations to his wife and did have an "I love you" will for anything not passing by joint ownership or beneficiary. So I charge him with a financial misdemeanor, but not a felony. He wanted to be secretive, but not do anything nasty/unexpected.

[Lastrun]

First, as Capitan Renault said: "I'm shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here after over 10,000 posts Leesbro63 asks what a SIP is.

And odd in terms of the size of the account, perhaps at one time it was bigger, or this was a test run.

But SIP would be a decent option for a surviving spouse with low (or diminished) financial acumen or just no interest in finances.

I agree it is not worth keeping this going at this asset level.

[Leesbro63]

First, as Capitan Renault said: "I'm shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here after over 10,000 posts Leesbro63 asks what a SIP is.

My first laugh of the week! Yup, I have never seen this before. And have been a Schwab account holder for over 30 years. Go figure! I have a sometimes bad/sometimes good habit of tunnel vision. Only focusing on what I think is relevant to me. At the risk of missing something else that COULD be relevant to me.