So the first month of my experiment of comparing an adviser managed portfolio to one of the new robo-portfolio's has now come to an end. This was obviously an interesting time to start a contest like this, with stock markets around the world experiencing one of the worst January's on record.
So I figured it would be interesting to see if the fees that I'm paying my third party adviser bought me any protection on the downside. And the very interesting answer at the end of month one is that yes, it did.
My adviser managed portfolio finished for the month down 4.44%. My fees also get taken out during the first month of each quarter, so that's actually after fees, so the gross performance was even a little better.
The "robo-adviser" finished down 5.19%, which was pretty much right in line with the market as a whole, with the Dow down 5.5% for the month and the S&P 500 down 5%.
So paying the extra fees is getting me some protection on the downside. If we get a bounce back sometime in the next couple of months, it'll be interesting to compare how they perform on the upswing.
