Allocations

The next step is to pull together the allocations recommended by the four online advisors. First, I attempted to be able to make like comparisons by answering their questions and picking plans most appropriate to my current situation. This led to the following proposed allocations.

Asset Class	Personal Capital	Wealth Front	Betterment	Vanguard
US Stocks	44%	36%	25%	22%
International Stocks	19%	33%	23%	9%
US Bonds	20%	10%	30%	55%
International Bonds	5%	7%	22%	14%
* Alternatives	13%	14%	0%	0%
* Real Estate, Metals, etc.

The allocations vary a fair amount, but would be moved closer together by adjustments to my answers on each site. One thing that does stand out is that Vanguard is far more conservative than the others.

These will be basis for the allocations that I ultimately use for my personal investments. It would be pretty easy to get hung up on trying to optimize these allocations. But the reality is that future results will be more dependent on the overall market direction than the percentages I use to allocate each asset.

Next I used the sites to get proposed allocations for my young friend. Following are the results (Personal Capital wasn’t an option because of the human interaction requirement).

ETF Asset	WealthFront		Betterment		Vanguard
	Taxable	IRA	Taxable	IRA	IRA
VTI - Vanguard US Total Stock Market	35%	21%	16%	16%	59%
VEA - Vanguard FTSE Developed Market	21%	18%	37%	37%	25%
VWO - Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets	16%	15%	11%	11%
VIG - Vanguard Dividend Appreciation	8%	15%
VTV - Vanguard US Large-Cap Value			16%	16%
VOE - Vanguard US Mid-Cap Value			5%	5%
VBR - Vanguard US Small-Cap Value			5%	5%
VNQ - Vanguard REIT		14%
DJP - iPath DJ-UBS Commodity	5%
MUB - iSares National AMT-Free Muni Bond	15%		5%
LQD - iShares Corporate Bond		10%	1%	2%
EMB - iShares JP Morgan Emerging Markets Bond		7%
BND - Vanguard US Total Bond Market				3%	13%
BNDX - Vanguard Total International Bond			2%	4%	3%
VWOB - Vanguard Emerging Markets Government Bond			2%	2%
	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

There is a more detailed breakdown here because of Personal Capital exclusion. Also included are taxable and IRA options because my friend has both. While there are a lot of different allocations, all come down to a stock investment of 80% to 90%.

The next step is to map these recommendations into actual investment products and amounts.