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"FutureAdvisor, which has no ads, bills itself as a free alternative to paying a lot for financial advice from professionals, who often charge a 1% annual fee or work on commission. Many big investment firms offer retirement-savings services, but these generally don't offer step-by-step advice for an investor's complete portfolio." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303506404577448503218010424.html?mod=e2tw
Walked through it. The software concluded that both the hypothetical investor (Robin) that Junior and Johanna used in this month's "Best of" column and I are in deep doo-doo. Robin needs to save $1100/month and I need to park away $2600/month. It might be right, but it's virtually alone in that judgment.
I'll note that the site doesn't account for Social Security benefits (at least not in any visible locale) and its rate of return assumptions ("we use 5th percentile value of annualized returns of the S&P 500 over 30 year periods" - basically, it assumes a permanent bear market) strike me as untenable.
I'll flag this site for J & J to look at as part of their impending update of the retirement calculators piece.
Comments
Walked through it. The software concluded that both the hypothetical investor (Robin) that Junior and Johanna used in this month's "Best of" column and I are in deep doo-doo. Robin needs to save $1100/month and I need to park away $2600/month. It might be right, but it's virtually alone in that judgment.
I'll note that the site doesn't account for Social Security benefits (at least not in any visible locale) and its rate of return assumptions ("we use 5th percentile value of annualized returns of the S&P 500 over 30 year periods" - basically, it assumes a permanent bear market) strike me as untenable.
I'll flag this site for J & J to look at as part of their impending update of the retirement calculators piece.
For what it's worth,
David