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Comment by bwood | Hacker News Reader

I'm working on an app that turns brokerage accounts into a fully customizable robo-advisor. Create a target portfolio made up of stocks/ETFs, and our app will keep everything balanced and fully invested.

We're starting with this simple use case of keeping a balanced portfolio, but really we see brokerage accounts as a financial operating system that's lacking good software.

We're already on TD Ameritrade and Interactive Brokers, check it out!

https://passiv.com/

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I've been thinking about doing something in this space. What are the regulatory requirements (if any) for something like this (i.e. offering investing advice, but without direct management of a user's assets)?

The trick is to not give advice. Structure the software so that it's entirely self-directed and you don't push users towards a specific investment.

You'll probably still attract attention from regulatory bodies (we did!), but it's fine if you can show that you're not telling people what to do with their money. It's okay to help them do the things they want to do, but they have to be in control.

In our case, we showed how our software is functionally equivalent to a rebalancing spreadsheet, just with a wicked UX and flexible feature set.

This is a fantastic platform! I run my entire Questrade portfolio from passiv.

I'm a big fan of the dollar-cost averaging feature. And the fact that you offer an API.

Fun fact: the dollar cost averaging feature was a direct outcome of the market crash in early 2020. A whole bunch of users were rebalancing out of necessity, but they wanted to dollar cost average their way back into the market. So we had to scramble and build it quick.

If you have any feature requests, please reach out!

Just FYI Dollar Cost Averaging has not been proven to be more effective than lump sum investing.

This is true. For those that would like to learn more, I'd highly recommend listening to the Rational Reminder Podcast Episode 101. Ben Felix does a great job dissecting the facts on dollar cost averaging.

https://rationalreminder.ca/podcast/101

This is very cool. Well done.

Thanks!

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