# WealthBar Private Investment Pools



## gocanada (Jan 3, 2014)

Hey all,

I just got an email about this and was curious if anyone has any thoughts? I'm pretty familiar with how roboadvisors, like WeathBar work, but this seems a bit different?

http://join.wealthbar.com/private-investment-pools/

Any thoughts?


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## Feruk (Aug 15, 2012)

Where's the advantage vs just investing in ETFs yourself? Their "fee" excludes ETF MERs. Pass.


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## gocanada (Jan 3, 2014)

Agreed - that's why I've never looked at Roboadvisors before.

With this new offering, what they are saying is that you have access to asset classes that are not normally available to anyone with less the $1M in investment. "the Private Investment Pools' investment strategy goes beyond basic stocks and bonds and uses exclusive assets not accessible to many retail investors or financial advisors." This seems different then their standard roboadvisor offering.


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## GPM (Jan 23, 2015)

gocanada said:


> Hey all,
> 
> I just got an email about this and was curious if anyone has any thoughts? I'm pretty familiar with how roboadvisors, like WeathBar work, but this seems a bit different?
> 
> ...


It seems to be access to Nicola private wealth management, usually reserved for clients with $1million plus. 
Great if you want active management as long as the fee is one percent or less. 

Interestingly wealth bar was started by Nicola management's son, and his dad, the founder of Nicola wealth, is one of the advisors. His mom appears to be as well. Unfortunately, the portfolios of all the "robo" advisors are overly complex, don't use the cheapest/newest/best etf's in class, and have less than ideal distribution compared to what most couch potatoes are used too. However, wealth bar is full service with financial plans and insurance sales, if a person is looking for someone else to do the work. 

The most interesting is nest wealth at $80/mo, $120 on trades/year on average, and mers of .18-.2. Not an unreasonable cost, but way more than DIY couch potato (I'm at .01% using the old recommended VXUS AND VTI for foreign). But what is a bit unusual, is the portfolio is supposedly based on David Swenson. Nothing like it. I passed. If my wife ever has to take over the portfolio I'll get her to use a broker trade based, forced to use ETF's or Mawer, Jarislowski Fraser, Steady Hand, Leith Wheeler or other discretionary lowish fee active management firms. 

If nest wealth had a couch potato like portfolio I'd likely pay the thousand bucks a year at this point in my life. HOWEVER, for those that can't seem to get started or are intimidated, their portfoilio is the most acceptable I've seen, likely good enough (put together by a CFA), cheapest, and hands off. It's a pity that the portfolios aren't shown on the website, so some of the big shooters on the forum could evaluate them.


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