Scared to Invest? This App Has Experts Who Manage Your Investments For You

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Carmen Mandato/The Penny Hoarder
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Investing in the stock market sounds intimidating. 

You’re not exactly a Wall Street expert, and this is your hard-earned money on the line. Knowing what stocks to pick, when to buy, when to sell — it can be downright scary.

But a new iOS app called Round has expert fund managers who actively manage your investments. 

It works by connecting your money with world-class investment experts who collectively manage more than $500 billion. This means you invest with big-time asset management firms with names like Guggenheim, DoubleLine and Highland Capital. These are world-class managers who are equipped to navigate the most complex markets for you.

But you probably need a lot of money for something like this, right? 

With Round, you can get started in minutes with only $5 — for now. That low minimum investment will probably go up later on as Round keeps building its clientele. It’s also easy to set up small weekly contributions to grow your nest egg over time.

While a traditional wealth manager might charge over 1%, Round charges only a 0.5% annual fee. Here’s a sweetener: If you don’t make money, Round waives its fee.* What other company is willing to do that?

Get Experts to Manage Your Investments 

A lot of investing apps are robo-investors. They automate your investments by using software to rebalance and trade for you. 

The catch is, they have a really generic, bare-bones investment strategy. They simply funnel your money into low-cost index funds that track the stock and bond markets as a whole. They don’t provide any management or oversight. 

They just passively follow the markets. As the markets go, they go. It’s like investing with training wheels.

Do you really want to put a robot in charge of your financial future? Do you really want to trust your precious nest egg with the likes of WALL-E, Ultron and C-3PO?

With Round, you get real-life humans managing your investments. Expert management means safer, more stable returns. It could even add 3% more in annual returns.* These world-class investment pros use more sophisticated strategies, invest in alternative areas, and they make moves that robots can’t.

Get a Customized Investment Strategy

Here’s what Round will do for you that the robos won’t:

  • Investment managers will actively steer your portfolio as conditions change, instead of passively following the markets.
  • They can diversify your investments more, because they have a wider range of options to choose from. Instead of just stocks and bonds, they can also invest in alternative assets — a strategy of the ultra-wealthy. 
  • Round will ask you questions to assess your financial situation. Based largely on that, you’ll get a custom-built portfolio with different experts managing each part. For example, a fixed-income specialist might manage 10% of your portfolio, while a growth stock manager guides 20% of it, and other experts oversee the rest.

The bottom line: With Round, your money gets managed by real experts — not robots — at a fraction of the typical cost.

Mike Brassfield ([email protected]) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.

*Terms and conditions apply. Visit Investround.com for further information.

Disclosure: We have a financial relationship with Round Investments LLC and will be compensated if consumers apply for an account and/or fund an account with Round through links in our content. However, the analysis and opinions expressed here are our own.