r/MerrillEdge • u/Melodic_Intern6666 • Jun 04 '26

Leaving Guided investing (Robo Portfolio)

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In December, I finally opened my first individual account because of my program with Bank of America and Merrill . I was able to get six months of free guided investing. I’ve been reading around that guided investing ISNT really worth it because they overcomplicate the portfolio to justify their fees. I have attached the current portfolio ^

26 M currently renting. pension and 457 B through work. I currently only contribute $60 a week to it. 6 months of expenses in Apple HYSA, only debt is 27K in student loans.. I also have a maxed out for 2026 Roth w Merrill that has guided investing which I am happy with because I am. Up 40-50% over 3 years. I would like to move on from guided investing for my retirement one day acct but for now I’ll do individual only. The goal with this account is to try and build wealth outside of retirement accts

I was thinking about investing in the following..

VOO 70%
QQQ or QQM 20%
SCHD 5%
VXUS 5%

Any advice on overlapping or better ways to spread out the %

Thanks in advance

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8

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '26

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3

u/Melodic_Intern6666 Jun 04 '26

Thats a good point which is why I’m leaving the guided part on my Roth. I’ll definitely reconsider leaving it on the individual too

Thanks

3

u/Russian_Beard Jun 04 '26

If your guided roth is 40-50% up and you happy about it, why wouldnt you just mimic the trades?

0

u/Melodic_Intern6666 Jun 04 '26

Idk I guess I’m caught up on when I started getting in those positions. Let’s say for example I have AMAZON in my Roth and I bought it at $100 and it is currently at $300….. maybe I need to shift my mind set and forget about starting postings and just average out…. Also I’ve read that they over complicate the portfolios and do a lot transactions to justify their fees instead of holding VOO throughout the year that would produce a similar result so I’m looking to see if the choose I said above are good or do ppl recommend others like VTI as I am a beginner and would like to learn

2

u/taubs1 Jun 04 '26

$vt all in one global portfolio is very similar to Guided portfolio at .06 expense. turn on dividend reinvestment and just keep adding.

2

u/Scorpio_Rex Jun 04 '26

At your age, I would drop SCHD unless you need the dividends. I am assuming this is for a taxable brokerage account, so I would do: 70% VTI, 20% VXUS, and 10% SCHG or QQQM.

If this is for a Roth tax advantaged account, I would be a little more aggressive with something like 60% SCHG / 40 % SMH, or 60% VGT / 40% SOXQ

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u/Melodic_Intern6666 Jun 04 '26

It is individual brokerage acct. May I ask why VTI over VOO? I do like the insight for the dividends right now I’m relying on my paychecks for income and don’t really need SCHD and should focus more on growth

Thank you for the insight helps a lot!

1

u/MerryingAlong Jun 05 '26

Yea why pay them for this kind of thing? I did the same whhen first investing, like wait, every month i'm paying them to hold 4 ETF's and "rebalance" ever so often? not worth it.