Model Portfolios. One Size Fits All. Bad Bad Idea During Coronacrisis.

The notion of putting retail investors in cookie-cutter mass-produced standardized buckets of allocations, referred to as model portfolios, is remnant of antiquated ‘90s thinking. In 2020, during the coronacrisis it is akin to paying a doctor expensive (very typically over 1% of assets) fees for an over-the-counter pain medicine prescription.

Bespoke allocation goes far beyond conventional passive risk and return trade-off found in model portfolios. It personalizes for unique investor preferences including accommodating a desire or aversion to alternative investments, expressing preferences for desired levels of illiquidity, considering different investing horizons, incorporating time varying risk preferences as well imposing constraints on specific asset classes to reflect unique investor circumstances.

Departing from model portfolios has potential to foster greater transparency. Moreover, it raises the quality of discourse an advisor has with her client. It encourages a conversation not on historical, but around forward looking risk- return expectations. It also brings nuance in investment decision making, conspicuous by absence in model portfolios.

Rather than persist with the historical notion of putting clients in coarse model portfolios, a far better approach is to begin by analyzing the forward-looking statistical properties and expected behavior of a client’s existing portfolio. This helps to arrive at the best combination of asset sub-types that improve existing allocations on a variety of chosen metrics.

ActiveAllocator.com lets you create bespoke portfolios in 10 clicks, in 10 minutes and at 1/10th cost.

ActiveAllocator is a digital asset allocation platform with technology-enabled customized advice capabilities. It is the world’s first portal that seamlessly integrates traditional, illiquid and alternative investments within portfolios. It helps investors analyze existing allocations, discover inefficiencies and create bespoke portfolios in minutes.

Author: Sameer_Jain

Partner. Sameer Jain is founder of FinTech ActiveAllocator.com, the world’s first portal that seamlessly integrates traditional, illiquid and alternative investments within portfolios. Prior to this he was Chief Economist & Managing Director at AR Capital. Before that he headed Investment Content & Strategy at UBS Alternative Investments. At UBS, he served as a non-voting member of the Wealth Management Research investment committee, and as a capital allocator was responsible for all illiquid investing including fund manager selection and due diligence across the platform. Prior to UBS he headed product development & investment research at Citigroup Alternative Investments that managed over $75 billion of alternative investments across hedge funds, managed futures, private equity, credit structures, infrastructure and real estate. Here he led a team that developed proprietary models for portfolio strategy and asset allocation with alternative investments, provided investment support and research to pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, endowments as well as internal clients including Citi Private Bank. Before this he was with Cambridge Alternative Investments and SunGard (System Access) where he travelled to over 80 countries for work across Europe, Asia, Middle-East and Africa. He has written over 30 academic and practitioner articles on alternative investments with thousands of downloads at SSRN, presented at over a hundred industry conferences and has coauthored a book, Active Equity Management. Mr. Jain has multiple degrees in engineering, management, public administration and policy and is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. He is a recipient of the Alfred Sloan Fellowship and subsequently was a Fellow of Public Policy and Management at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government for a year. He holds Series 7 and 66 securities licenses. View all posts by Sameer_Jain