text: Robo-Investing Craze Pits Vanguard Against Fidelity
  » Robo-Investing Craze Pits Vanguard Against Fidelity
  Barraged by investment firms eager to manage their life savings, many Americans are making their choice—for nobody. They're shrugging off investment advisors altogether in the hunt for lower costs.
  So fund giants Vanguard Group and Fidelity Investments are trying to win them over—with robots. The rivals, which have a combined $5.4 trillion in assets under management, are escalating the competition for customers in a new frontier known as robo-investing. Robo-firms use algorithms to design portfolios based on questions clients answer online. These portfolios will more than triple to as much as $60 billion in 2015 from about $16 billion at the start of 2014, Boston researcher Aite Group predicts.
  Vanguard unveiled its own robo-like offering in May, called Personal Advisor Services, for customers with at least $50,000. It targets retirees, or near retirees, compared with the millennials who flock to robo-startups. Vanguard's algorithm looks at age, risk tolerance, and other attributes it gleans from an online questionnaire. The client speaks with an advisor before finalizing the investment plan. Vanguard, located outside Philadelphia, charges a relatively puny 0.3 percent of assets annually on top of the fees for its funds. Traditional advisors can take 1 percent or more.
  Fidelity is embracing the robo-product route via the 3,200 independent advisory firms for which it clears trades and holds about $1.5 trillion in assets. Boston-based Fidelity teamed up with No. 2 robo-firm Betterment in October to steer those advisors toward Betterment's software. The robo-programs pick portfolios, often based on Vanguard funds, and automatically rebalance them to cut time and costs. Fidelity gets a referral fee, which it won't disclose, from its New York–based partner. "Financial firms can no longer wait for the emerging affluent to appear at their doorstep when they have enough assets," says David Canter, who heads a Fidelity unit serving independent advisors."You have to think about them now."
  Fidelity, which built its business on funds that try to beat themarket, says it doesn't currently plan a robo-product for retail investors. It already has funds that automatically rebalance and online tools to build a portfolio. Its advisory services cost from 0.55 percent to 1.7 percent depending on the amount of assets a customer has.
  In the rising robo-rivalry between Fidelity and Vanguard, the winner may be ... Charles Schwab Corp. The largest independent U.S. brokerage by client assets started a robo- offering for retail investors on March 9. By the end of May, the new program had $2.4 billion in client money and about 33,000 accounts. "The pressure is on," Aite's Pirker says.