Funds And Investments

The Most Common Asset Classes For Investors Every type of asset gains or loses value differently, so it helps to know what those types are and how they work. An asset class is a name for a group of assets that share common qualities and behave similarly in the market. They’re governed by the same rules and regulations, and gain or lose value based on the same factors and circumstances. Different asset classes have relatively little in common, and tend to have fluctuations in value that are imperfectly correlated. Common asset classes include: Equities (stocks) Fixed income (bonds) Cash Real Estate Commodities Cryptocurrencies Alternative investments Financial Derivatives Within these groups, there are several assets people commonly invest in. The most common types of assets for investors The three financial assets you may hear about the most are stocks, bonds, and cash. A strong investment portfolio often includes a balance of these assets, or combines them with others. Let’s take a closer look at each of these. Stocks A stock is a type of equity. It’s basically a tiny piece of a company. When you invest in stocks, you become a partial “owner” of the companies that issued those stocks. You don’t own the building, and you can’t go bossing around the employees, but you’re a shareholder. Your stock’s value is directly tied to the company’s profits, assets, and liabilities. And that means you have a stake in the company’s success or failure. Stocks are volatile assets—their value changes often—and they have historically had the greatest risk and highest returns out of these three asset categories (stocks, bonds and cash). Choosing stocks from a wide range of companies in different industries can be a smart way to diversify your portfolio. Bonds A bond represents a portion of a loan. Its value to the bondholder comes from the interest on the loan. Bonds are typically more stable than stocks—lower risk, lower reward. Bonds belong to the “fixed income” asset class, which focuses on preserving capital and income, and tend to depend on different risk variables than stocks. If a company has a bad quarter, that’s probably not going to affect the value of your bond, unless they have a really bad quarter then default on their loan. When stock markets have a bad month, investors tend to flock to safer asset classes. In those cases, returns on bonds may outperform returns from the stock market. Something else to consider with bonds is the impact of interest rates and inflation. When interest rates increase or decrease, they directly affect how much bond interest you accrue. And since bonds generate lower returns than stocks, they may struggle at times to beat inflation. Cash With cash investments, things like money market accounts and certificates of deposit (CDs), you’re basically loaning cash (often to a bank) in exchange for interest. This is usually a short-term investment, but some cash investments like CDs can lock up funds for a few years. These investments are often low-risk because you can be confident they will generate a return, even though it might be lower than returns for other types of asset classes. Cash investments offer higher liquidity, meaning you can more quickly sell or access these assets when you need the money. As such, the return you get is typically lower than what you’d achieve with other asset classes. Investors therefore tend to park the money they need to spend in the near-term in cash investments. Other common assets Those are the big three. But investors also invest in real estate, commodities, alternative asset classes, financial derivatives, and cryptocurrencies. Each of these asset classes come with their own set of risk factors and potential advantages. What about investment funds? An investment fund is a basket of assets that can include stocks, bonds, and other investments. The most common kinds of funds you can invest in are mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Mutual funds and ETFs are similar, but there’s a reason ETFs are gaining popularity: they’re usually cheaper. ETFs tend to be less expensive to manage and therefore typically have lower expense ratios. Additionally, mutual funds charge a fee to cover their marketing expenses. ETFs don’t. Mutual funds are also more likely to be actively managed, so they can have more administrative costs. Most ETFs are funds that simply track the performance of a specific benchmark index (e.g., the S&P 500), so there’s less overhead to manage ETFs than mutual funds. ETFs have another advantage: you can buy and sell them on the stock exchange, just like stocks. You can only sell a mutual fund once per day, at the end of the day. That’s not always the best time. Being able to sell at other times opens the door to other investment strategies, like tax-loss harvesting. How to choose the right assets When you start investing, it’s hard to know what assets belong in your investment portfolio. And it’s easy to make costly mistakes. But if you start with a goal, choosing the right assets is actually pretty easy. Say you want $100,000 to make a down payment on a house in 10 years. You have a target amount and a deadline. Now all you have to do is decide how much risk you’re willing to take on and choose assets that fit that risk level. For many investors, it’s simply a matter of balancing the ratio of stocks and bonds in your portfolio.

Meet the Innovative Technology Portfolio If you believe in the power of tech to blaze new trails, you can now tailor your investing to track the companies leading the way. The most valuable companies of today aren’t the same bunch as 20 years ago. With each generation comes new challengers and new categories (Hello, Big Tech). And while we can’t really predict the next class of top performers, innovation will likely come from parts of the economy that use technology in new and exciting applications, industries like: semiconductors clean energy virtual reality artificial intelligence nanotechnology This dynamic led us to create the Innovative Technology portfolio. What is the Innovative Technology Portfolio? The portfolio increases your exposure to companies pioneering the technology mentioned above and more. These innovations carry the potential to reshape the way we work and play, and in the process shape the market’s next generation of high-performing companies. Using the Core portfolio as its foundation, the Innovative Technology portfolio is built to generate long-term returns with a diversified, low-cost approach, but with increased exposure to risk. It contains many of the same investments as Core, but swaps specific exposures to value stocks with an allocation to the SPDR S&P Kensho New Economies Composite ETF (Ticker: KOMP). For a more in-depth look at the portfolio’s methodology, skip over to its disclosure. How are pioneering companies selected? The Kensho index that KOMP tracks uses a special branch of artificial intelligence called Natural Language Processing to screen regulatory data and identify companies helping drive the Fourth Industrial Revolution. After picking companies across 22 categories, each is combined into the overall index and weighted according to their risk and return profiles. Why might you choose this portfolio over Betterment’s Core portfolio? We built the Innovative Technology portfolio to perform more or less the same as an equivalent stock/bond allocation of the Core portfolio. It may, however, outperform or underperform depending on the return experience of KOMP and the companies this fund tracks. So, if you believe the emerging tech of today will drive the returns of tomorrow—and are willing to take on some additional risk to make that bet— this is a portfolio made with you in mind. Risk and early adoption can tend to go hand-in-hand, after all. Why invest in innovation with Betterment? Full disclosure: we’re a little biased when it comes to making bets on new frontiers and the plucky companies exploring them. We may be the largest independent digital investment advisor now, but the category barely existed when we opened shop in 2008. Innovative tech is in our DNA, so if you choose to invest in it with Betterment, you not only get our professional portfolio management tools, you get an advisor with first-hand experience in the field of first movers.

Crypto Investing 101 Three questions to ask yourself before you invest in crypto. If you’re taking your first steps into the world of cryptocurrency investing, we recommend asking three questions to gain your footing. Don’t worry, we have some answers to get you moving when you’re ready. And remember, to invest in crypto you don’t have to be an expert. We’re here to be your guide so you can make the best decision for you. Question 1: What is crypto? A simple question with a not so simple answer. To date, there are over 17,000 types of crypto in existence.1 Bitcoin and Ethereum may be household names but the world of crypto extends far beyond their influence. In order to understand crypto, it helps to understand its underlying technology: blockchain. Blockchain is a technology that, in the context of crypto, provides recordkeeping through five foundational features: Immutable: The data can’t be changed. Decentralized: Controlled by a large network of computers instead of a central authority. Distributed: Many parties hold public copies of the ledger. Cryptographically Secure: Makes tampering or changing the data basically impossible. Permissionless: Open to anyone to participate. If you don’t remember any of the five features above, here’s the big idea: The internet enabled the digital flow of information. Blockchain technology enables the digital flow of almost anything of value. What does that mean? It means we can create systems to record ownership without the need for third parties. And we can transfer ownership—using blockchain—between each other without a third party. This creates potential for new economic and business models, which is why there are more than 17,000 types of crypto. Crypto use cases span from art (for example, you can bid on a bored looking ape for only a few hundred thousand dollars) to banking (making financial services available to marginalized groups) to gaming (better grab that plot of land in the metaverse before Snoop Dogg does). All of this is made possible because crypto, built on blockchains, creates new ways to transact in a growing digital economy. Question 2: Why should I invest in crypto? If you want to invest in crypto, reflecting on why can help guide your investments. Crypto is an emerging asset class and is transforming the financial industry. However, you should be careful to understand the risks of cryptocurrency, which can be highly speculative and volatile and can experience sharp drawdowns. Like all investing, this is personal and not without risk, and we encourage you to invest in crypto only when you are comfortable bearing the risk of loss. One of the things that excites us about crypto is the diversity of the ecosystem that is being created. Crypto is far more than simply a digital currency used to buy NFT art or “digital gold” as we see in the headlines. The use cases are creating global investment opportunities available to anyone who chooses to participate. Keep in mind, across the thousands of crypto projects, you do have to look out for scams and fraud. For example, Squid Game may have been a TV show worth binge watching but ended up being a crypto worth almost nothing. But that’s not to say that crypto can’t be used for good. (Fun Fact: Did you know that you can donate crypto to charity? GiveWell, one of Betterment’s partner charities, accepts many different types of crypto!) Here are a few common reasons people invest in crypto: Make Money Crypto investing comes with risks. There can be extreme price fluctuations compared to traditional asset classes. With that said, there is the potential for crypto to rapidly increase in value both over short and long periods of time. Based on Betterment’s research, this is the #1 reason people invest in crypto. And that’s perfectly fine—we invest to create wealth for ourselves and loved ones. Decentralization Many of the projects that create crypto tokens are considered decentralized, which means they aim to remove the control banks and large institutions have on financial services and other business models such as advertising. When applied to traditional finance, this sector of crypto is called Decentralized Finance, or DeFi. Blockchain technology, including digital wallets and smart contracts, can be used to replace banks and other third parties. In theory, this can put users in control, reduce fees, and speed up transactions. (You can send crypto almost instantly to another digital wallet.) Oh, and did we mention that crypto transactions can occur 24/7/365? Another benefit of its decentralized nature. Invest in the Future As we’ve mentioned, crypto spans a broad spectrum of our lives, and it's changing the future, even if we don’t know how yet. By now, you’ve likely heard the term metaverse being casually used, whether by Facebook’s (sorry, we mean Meta’s) CEO Mark Zuckerberg or by a family member at a holiday dinner. It’s everywhere we look. And one way or another, many investors believe the metaverse will be part of our future. Similarly, the concept of Web 3.0, which is a broader evolution of the internet, offers investors many forward thinking investments to consider. The best part? It’s generally accessible to anyone, not just angel investors and venture capitalists. Stepping back, a more general reason for investing in crypto, especially if you are completely new to it, is diversifying your broader investment portfolio. If done correctly, including a small amount of crypto in your overall portfolio may help prevent you from being overly exposed to concentrated risks. Depending on what crypto investments you select, you’ll gain exposure to advancements in the metaverse, decentralized finance, and Web 3.0 technologies, among others. Question 3: How should I invest in crypto? There are many ways to invest in crypto but we’ll boil this down to two categories for you to choose from: Do-It-Yourself Crypto and Managed Crypto Portfolios. Do-It-Yourself Crypto DIY crypto investing involves navigating digital wallets, selecting crypto exchanges, and safekeeping keys (so important!). Before you do any of that, don’t forget you need to research which of the 17,000-plus cryptos you want to invest in while navigating the crypto ecosystem yourself 24/7/365. Particularly because cryptocurrency is so varied and prone to speculation, DIY crypto involves significant upfront research to understand which crypto is the right fit for you. Managed Crypto Portfolios Crypto managed portfolios function similarly to managed equity portfolios. The technology and investment experts that manage the crypto portfolio do much of the heavy lifting (the nitty gritty research of which cryptocurrencies may be appropriate for you based on your financial situation and preferences, the rebalancing and reallocation, and the managing of your account, including wallets/keys) while you can focus on the bigger picture like creating the life you want through your investments. There is still risk with this method of investing in that the underlying cryptocurrencies may experience losses, but it can help you invest in crypto based on your needs and interests, creating a personalized crypto investing experience. Plus, you’ll save time and not have to stress about remembering your digital wallet’s password for fear of losing your Bitcoin forever. Are you ready to invest in crypto? Before you step into crypto investing, make sure you know what you are investing in and why it’s important to you, and try to understand the risks involved. Remember, you don’t have to be an expert. If you reserve the term DIY for weekend trips to the Home Depot, not crypto investing, consider a managed crypto investing portfolio.