Announcing a new strategic partner: Stockspot

Note: this partnership has expired and this integration is no longer in place.

We’re proud to announce a new strategic partner, Stockspot Chris Brycki and his Sydney-based firm provide fully-online, low-fee, hassle-free investing. Stockspot is Australia’s first paperless, managed discretionary account provider for retail investors (like us). They’ll put your money to work in curated ETF model portfolios and Sharesight will act as the investor-facing performance and reporting tool. This is a big deal for investors.

Using a super simple registration process, investors are taken through a series of questions designed to gauge their risk tolerance, financial situation, investment horizon and liquidity needs. Then they’re presented with portfolio options, complete with a holdings breakdown and future performance expectations.

All Stockspot portfolios are comprised exclusively of ETFs. Most from Vanguard or iShares (Blackrock), two of the most trusted and popular ETF providers. For an online, managed investment product with a $2,000 minimum, this is 100% appropriate. Once you verify your ID (again, fully-online) and fund your account (you guessed it, fully-online), Stockspot puts your money to work in one of their ETF Model Portfolios. They’ll rebalance you automatically, too.

We love ETFs. They provide the average investor with so much cost-effective choice. Broad exposure to an index, country, or theme at a low cost? Yes, please. We’re investors through and through at Sharesight. We love picking cheap stocks, but we’re time-poor, and when a good opportunity can’t be found, we invest in ETFs. The "core satellite" approach serves us well.

Stockspot not only selects high quality ETFs on your behalf, but their low fees mean you’ll have more money to invest over the long term. Studies have shown that the fees we pay to invest are the most reliable indicator of future returns - even better predictors than research houses’ ratings. If you’re someone who prefers to invest for the long term and expect to track the broad market - fees are just as important as picking an asset class, let alone a solitary fund manager or company.

Enter Sharesight. In order for Stockspot clients to track their performance, keep tabs on dividends, and run tax reports they’ve chosen to partner with us. Sharesight is the interface that Stockspot relies on to convey mission-critical information to their clients.

Chris and his team had a look at some old-school portfolio administration providers and determined that Sharesight provided better functionality and a more intuitive interface. Furthermore, Sharesight adds a bit of extra value for his clients. With Sharesight, even though we’ve white-labelled a dedicated version for Stockspot portfolios, his clients can open a Sharesight account. This way they can view their Stockspot holdings alongside their other portfolios. This provides one view onto all their holdings, which is really handy, especially come tax time.

You’re reading our blog, so you already know how we rant and rave about online "life admin". It’s 2014. We expect everything to be accomplished online. Investing, travel booking, taxes, taxi hire, you name it. Stockspot and Sharesight manage to do two important things at once: provide a cost-effective way to invest and a fully-online experience.

FURTHER READING

• Blog -- Announcing a new partner - Macrovue
• Blog -- Announcing a new partner - Six Park
• Blog -- Visualise your portfolio with Sharesight and Simply Wall St.