Betterment Core Portfolio

The standard Betterment portfolio for taxable accounts utilizes a national municipal bond ETF to provide exposure to national municipal bonds. For customers with a minimum balance of (or intent to fund) at least $100,000, Betterment offers state-specific municipal bond ETFs for California and New York residents in lieu of the national municipal bond ETF. These ETFs provide exposure to California municipal bonds and New York municipal bonds, respectively. State-specific municipal bonds are ...

Investors in every country are apt to follow their local stock market as a benchmark. The British follow the FTSE, Germans watch the DAX, and the Japanese pay attention to the Nikkei. American investors are drawn to use the S&P 500 as a benchmark because it’s familiar and is the most widely reported index in U.S. news. What Americans are less likely to hear is that the S&P 500 represents only a portion (about 80%) of the U.S. stock market and 36% of the world’s total stock market. While ...

Betterment is a strong believer in passive investing. The majority of the evidence shows that active management, whether by individual investors or fund managers, causes more harm than good in net-of-fee returns. We invest in low-cost, passive investments which always seek to match the market’s performance. However, like all market investments, the securities you own in your account are subject to market risk. Fluctuations in the market are normal and hard to predict over the short term, but ...