Archive for Wealthfront

The Day-Trading Pandemic

WEALTHFRONT : The Day-Trading Pandemic

The coronavirus has wrought devastating harm to the health of our nation and to the vibrancy of our economy. With respect to financial markets, it has also given rise to a full-blown mania. Individuals, cooped up at home, working remotely on flexible schedules, with no social activities and no live sports to watch and bet on, have increasingly turned to day trading in the stock market. Spurred by the fintech firm Robinhood and embraced by establishment giants such as Schwab and E*Trade, zero commissions are now the rule. And day trading has now supplanted sports betting for thousands of millennials and members of Gen Z who are sheltering at home in response to COVID-19.

These new market participants have very likely contributed to the extreme volatility that has recently characterized stock prices. Professional investors, such as the legendary Howard Marks and Warren Buffett, have been extremely cautious as the economy has entered into a deep recession, and they have actually been selling equities. But legions of new day traders have poured new money into stocks without a care for the risks involved, clearly unaware of Buffett’s maxim that “It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.”

The day traders’ frenzied buying has been most evident in individual issues. Two of the most popular stocks on the Robinhood trading platform in recent weeks have been FANGDD Network Group, the Chinese online real estate company with a name that conjures up the popular FANG stocks, and Hertz, the bankrupt car rental company. FANGDD rose from less than $6 a share to almost $130 during one period, only to fall back to $11, where it has currently been trading. Hertz has more than doubled in recent trading sessions. Day traders appear to be unaware that bankruptcy usually results in extinguishment of the stake of the current equity holders.
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What You Should Know About Bank Fees

ANDY RACHLEFF: What you should know about bank fees

You’ve probably spent a significant amount of time and effort trying to avoid paying banking fees. Unfortunately, these fees are extremely difficult to avoid and they really add up. Last year, the Los Angeles Times reported that fees alone made up more than a third of banks’ total revenue. Worse yet, these fees often far exceed any interest your bank is paying you, meaning your banking relationship is eroding your wealth – not building it. Paying $100 in banking fees annually (which is not at all outside the realm of possibility) would cost you $1,000 every decade, and that’s before you factor in the interest you could otherwise earn on that sum.

At Wealthfront, it’s no secret we don’t like fees. Fees are essentially negative earnings, and they can destroy your return. It’s important to be aware of any banking fees you’re paying, especially in combination with the interest your bank pays you on your deposits. To get the most out of your banking relationship, you’ll want a competitive interest rate and no fees. Unfortunately, most banks won’t give you that option.

Below we describe some common kinds of fees banks charge to shed some light on how banks typically operate. Some of these fees are for checking accounts, some are for savings accounts – and all of them have the potential to eat into your hard-earned cash.
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Meet the Winners of Wealthfront’s $100K Cash Giveaway

Wealthfront 100K Giveaway Winners

At Wealthfront, we’re always working to get you more. Our Cash Account, which currently has an APY that’s 5x the national average per FDIC.gov, is just one way we do that. Over the last 15 months, we’ve paid out over $113 million of interest to Cash Account clients.

Earlier this spring, we came up with an idea to do more than just pay a competitive interest rate. We decided to give away a total of $100,000 in the Wealthfront Cash Giveaway, where the winners would receive $25,000 each. We were incredibly excited to give the money away because we love rewarding our clients and we hoped that the cash would have a large, positive impact on the winners’ financial lives.

We were gratified to learn that this was exactly what happened. When the Cash Giveaway ended, we reached out to the Wealthfront clients who won to hear what winning $25,000 meant to them. We discovered that the prize meant a lot to our winners – whether it enabled them to achieve a large financial goal or gave them extra financial security in a challenging time. We’re very happy for the winners, and we loved hearing their stories. Read on to meet three of the winners of Wealthfront’s Cash Giveaway.
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Software Is Better At Most Jobs Than People

ANDY RACHLEFF

Software is far better at most jobs than people are. I realize that statement will make a lot of people uncomfortable, but it’s true. In just about every industry I know, software-based solutions provide greater functionality, convenience and speed than their human counterparts. There’s just no way people can keep up. That’s what prompted Marc Andreessen to make his famous assertion that “software is eating the world.”

Ability to Scale Leads to a Better Outcome
The primary advantage of software is it can serve one person, or a million of them, equally well. Today, computing power is so cheap that it’s essentially free. So it doesn’t matter how complex a piece of software is; you just throw more hardware at it as needed. In fact, the more people who use a piece of software, the more useful the software becomes, because it can use the data it accumulates to discover patterns that humans couldn’t possibly spot.

To appreciate software in action, think about Amazon. You may feel nostalgic for the old-fashioned book seller, but you can’t say she was better than Amazon. A bookstore owner might have known the preferences of a few of her best customers. But there is no way she could pick the ideal book for each of them, much less give them a thorough set of reviews, both positive and negative, for a title they are thinking about buying. And no one particularly enjoys jostling in line in a crowded store, as happens on the last day of holiday shopping. At Amazon, though, there is never a wait, and lines are never a problem.
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