Show HN: Simplifying 401(k) Advice - Feedback?

http://www.kivalia.com

by car • 13 years ago

35 47 13 years ago

bpm1117• 13 years ago

Hi all,

"Edit: I'm the co-founder of Kivalia." We've spent about 1 1/2 years developing the above-linked community-based 401(k) advisory service offering, which is now live. We'd welcome feedback from the community to help us refine the design/flow/usability of the service offering.

The specific problem we're solving is "How should I invest my 401(k) money, given the market environment and the options available to me specifically?"

My partner and I have deep domain expertise (quant finance & investment advisory experience - 25 years or so between us) and as such, run the risk of creating something intuitive to us, but too geeky for mass consumption.

I’ll be active in the comments section

Thanks! B

nikoftime• 13 years ago

Hey @bpm11, How does this differ from the consumer's perspective from BrightScope?

Best, David

bpm1117• 13 years ago

Brightscope rates plans based on cost and other attributes, while we provide actionable advice for participants in any plan. The actionable advice is in the form of model portfolios which are updated each quarter (with notifications sent to all subscribers to a particular plan).

wj5• 13 years ago

As your competitor I wish you the best! More innovation in this space is needed.

bpm1117• 13 years ago

Agree completely wj! Feel free to chat w/me if and when you'd like.

PaulHoule5• 13 years ago

Who stays in one place enough to have "one" 401(k)? When I switch jobs I roll over. I have rollover, traditional, Roth and SEP IRAs at E-Trade Does your service work for me?

bluedino• 13 years ago

What stinks about switching jobs is most places don't do a 401k for your first 3-6 months.

PaulHoule5• 13 years ago

My last company was funded by a another company that was a pioneer in the investment and benefits management world so we had a 401k with automatic 3% contribution from day 1, although no matching contributions unless I stuck around for 2 years. If I was getting matching I would have maxed my contributions, but instead I fully funded my Roth for the year and also started making (non IRA) contributions to a Lending Club account.

I worked for a while at a Uni that had something like a 401(k) which made an automatic contribution of 10% of base pay (on top of what you get paid) that started on day one. By default half of that went to Fidelity and the other half went to TIAA-CREF. I sold out Fidelity and converted my TIAA-CREF to an annuity because TIAA-CREF offered something very different from my other investments.

That's probably the best plan you can get these days, although I'd really be impressed if somebody offered me a defined benefit plan.

Anyhow I'm the kind of guy who buys XIV and doesn't look at the P&L figuring I'll win because the other guys will look at the P&L and blink and I won't.

bpm1117• 13 years ago

Then you might benefit from the advice we provide that takes advantage of the "no commission" ETF lists at the leading brokers (Fidelity, Schwab, E*Trade, TD Ameritrade) to start.

http://www.kivalia.com/blog/

Our advice is applicable in a number of ways.

PaulHoule5• 13 years ago

How do you wind up with a 29% allocation to CYB in a "conservative" allocation?

anandabits• 13 years ago

Employer provided 401k plans are great when you receive matching contributions, but otherwise not a very good. They generally have extremely limited investment options. It will be hard to offer general advice applicable to all 401k participants since they will each have a small selection of investment vehicles.

The best advice is to make sure you contribute enough to receive the matching contribution, and then immediately roll the money out into an IRA as soon as you leave the employer. This will allow you access to a much wider range of investment vehicles.

wj5• 13 years ago

More and more firms are starting to offer self directed brokerage accounts that you can use within your 401(k) plan.

Also in a 401(k) plan you get to purchase mutual funds at NAV which you cannot do through an IRA.

I don't believe there is a one size fits all ("best advice") solution to personal finances. Though I do agree with making sure you max the matching.

saryant3• 13 years ago

Also in a 401(k) plan you get to purchase mutual funds at NAV which you cannot do through an IRA.

I don't believe that's correct. My understanding is that all mutual funds (excl. closed-end funds) must trade at NAV regardless of the type of account they're held in.

http://www.sec.gov/answers/nav.htm

bpm1117• 13 years ago

anandabits - that's the point of our service! It is specific advice customizable to your specific 401(k) plan. Check out the site to see what I'm talking about.

I've got to agree w/ your last point - it is typically best to move money into an IRA. There are cases however where a larger employer may be able to get lower cost funds than would be available to you in a stand-alone IRA.

What is most important is putting away enough money to maximize any company match you might get.

But you're right, the limited options can be problematic; and that's why we've created Kivalia.

bradleyjg3• 13 years ago

I like the general idea -- many company's 401k options range from slightly sub-optimal to terrible, and helping people make the best of whatever choices they face can be very useful.

On the UI/UX side, the look and feel is very slick, but I'd like to see some deeper tutorial type explanations for things like beta and risk profiles rather than short "help" style definitions.

More fundamentally, it is hard to garner a real understanding of the sites' investment philosophy. That's something I'd really want to know before I send a friend or relative to this sort of website.

For example, although it is clear that the site favors active portfolio management, beyond just re-balancing, what is its take on active versus passively managed underlying funds? Is past performance being used as a predictor of future performance? What is the weight given to fees? What about internal leverage? And so on.

the_watcher3• 13 years ago

Yea, my biggest problem with my employer 401k is that I can't just invest in a Vanguard low fee fund, but I have to use their 401k management to get my matching funds.

arielweisberg• 13 years ago

I once had an employer who gave away .5% of my 401k every year to a no value add consultant who selected the overpriced funds. I lost 1% every year I didn't roll into an IRA, but it beat having the principal taxed @ 25%.

I wonder where the inflection point is where you are better off investing after tax.

wj5• 13 years ago

This of it another way. If you put in the least amount possible to max the matching (often 50% of first 6%) and put it into a money market or stable value fund then the "return" (the matching) will exceed the market returns you'd get on any index fund.

bpm1117• 13 years ago

That seems like a complete conflict of interest. Do you mean that they require you to have your account managed, for a fee, in order to get matching funds?

bpm1117• 13 years ago

Thanks, Bradley. Tutorial explanation comment is noted - we have some ideas on that front.

There are a few themes that we're playing on with regards to the advice, and we'll try to express them more clearly on the site as we move forward. These are:

1) Most of the investment options available to participants are really a mix of a number of market sectors...for example, Vanguard Wellington (http://www.kivalia.com/assets/vwelx/vanguard-wellington-inv). The name tells me nothing, but if one evaluates it, it looks like the mix of assets shown at the bottom right of the page referenced above...a mix of stocks and bonds. So we do a good job of mapping what various investments look like.

2) Getting the overall allocation right is the most important aspect of investing...and explains maybe 80% or more of one's overall returns. How much do I want in large cap growth, small cap value, international, etc.? That's incredibly hard for an individual to do when you have a bunch of vaguely named funds. Of course it's much easier to do when one has a list of sector-based index funds to work with.

3) Philosophically we're indifferent between active and passive funds...they're each just combinations of asset classes with a fee tacked on. What's most important to us is the exposure to various sectors a particular fund provides you, after fees.

4) Yes, our algorithms take into account each fund's respective management fees; so all else being equal we'd be biased towards the lower cost (better performing) alternative.

5) Past performance is definitively NOT a predictor of future performance. We simply show results for transparency sake in an effort to allow users to see whether or not we're adding value to the process.

6) We do build in "tilts" to our advice based on expected returns over a substantially long time horizon. These tilts are intended to bias portfolios towards sectors that look more attractive at any point in time, and away from sectors that are less attractive in our view. That said, it is a simple process to tighten down our algorithms to force the recommendations to a more benchmark-y look and performance.

bradleyjg3• 13 years ago

Thanks for the detailed response.

re: actively managed funds

Even beyond price, it is hard to know exactly what you are getting. A fund may be in the large cap value segment generally, but what if the fund manager hates financials or loves energy? Or even worse what if he hates financials this year, but loved them last year? Trying to diversify properly with such idiosyncratic building blocks seems a frustrating excise.

Re: overall allocation

I noticed that you have three model portfolios based on risk tolerance (conservative, moderate, aggressive) and you measure them versus target date funds as a benchmark. Are those different models intended to account for personal risk tolerance as well as time to retirement?

elindell• 13 years ago

Small thing I noticed. On http://www.kivalia.com/retirement-plans, typing in something you Kivalia doesn't recognize (most easily reproduced with something like "eafeaea") occasionally results in a JS alert that says "error".

bpm1117• 13 years ago

thanks for pointing that out, elindell...I've noticed that every once in awhile as well and we'll stamp that out.

dman• 13 years ago

How does this differ from brightscope?

bpm1117• 13 years ago

From my knowledge Brightscope rates the plans themselves based on expenses and other criteria.

Kivalia provides plan participants ongoing, actionable advice on how to invest the funds held in their individual accounts.

trombs• 13 years ago

Brilliant concept, as I've been struggling with this exact problem for a while. A few comments:

Details on how you decide a fund rating would be nice.

The "Forecasts that drive our models" doesn't tell me what's really going on. First item: "US Small Cap vs Large". So you're biased toward small cap? That's the implication, but it's not explicit. I'd like to read why. Also, two of the three listed items talk about international (without any explanation), yet my specific plan recommendation has just a sliver of international exposure despite several options in that regard.

Usability: after finding my company's plan and creating an account, if I click on "401k guidance" in the top nav, I don't expect it to show the search field to find other company plans. Rather, I expect it to show me my plan(s). (I see it's under My Stuff, but that's less obvious.)

Very good start!

bpm1117• 13 years ago

Currently fund ratings are determined as risk adjusted excess return versus the fund's best fit index. A "C" is average (no curve here!), so you'll find most index funds will be rated C. Funds that have returned more than 3% more on an RAR basis over the past year are deemed A.

We'll want to revisit ratings as we build out - to look at the graphic representation of excess returns in a universe and then customize ratings around reasonable percentiles.

On the +/++ and -/-- portions of the ranking: these are simply momentum scores for the sector in which the fund participates. So, an A++ fund is a manager who is doing well on a risk adjusted basis, in a sector that has strong current momentum.

We'll need to be more explicit on the biases. You're right they don't tell me much. The biases are clearly based on the forecast 10 year returns. At present we are negatively disposed to international generally. You can actually read through our views on the blog: http://www.kivalia.com/blog/post/2013/07/11/Investment-Outlo...

See if that helps.

Will take usability thoughts into account as well. Thanks!

nobodysfool• 13 years ago

Just want to say that if it's free, why do I even need an account to see for example this:

http://www.kivalia.com/plans/moderate-portfolio/226/oracle-c...

All I have to do is right click and 'delete node' in Chrome, and I get to see everything without an account.

Also, I could just go to the javascript console and run this: $.unblockUI();

If you are going to block people, at least do it right.

bpm1117• 13 years ago

We're not shooting for bulletproof security, at this time, as there is no personal info here. If we were, we'd probably be hiding the model portfolios behind the firewall as well.

That said, we would like those who find the information of value to sign up so we can update them as the models change.

barjo• 13 years ago

Like how you can get the performance rolled back in time. Nice feature that I have never seen before. Makes it feel less of a leap of faith.

bpm1117• 13 years ago

that another cool thing about the Kivalia framework. We have time-stapped market views, so we can confidently go back and say "Here's what we would have recommended for your plan 9 months ago".

I think you're obligated to do something like this if you're in any way providing active advice.

Show HN: Simplifying 401(k) Advice - Feedback?

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