Robo Advisors – bots are also machine – economic

By means of the Corona pandemic, the digital money system in particular is the focus. For investors, the platforms are in spite of the crisis-related losses continue to be popular and have even seen inflows.

The Corona-pandemic-related decline on the equity markets was reflected in the digitised Offered without a trace. The so-called Robo Advisors make of the classic wealth Advisory services through automated Online money system for some years of competition. Also in the crisis, the inflows.

Depending on the risk class of bots is more or less the capital of an investor to invest in exchange-traded funds (Exchange Traded Funds, ETF) with shares or bonds. ETF’s are also recommended by consumer advocates, because they are relatively inexpensive and a worldwide, diversified Portfolio enable. However, the Corona pandemic has hit the whole world, the exchanges have responded with the previous low points in March, according to. “If a crisis is as global as the current one, then international diversification will not help, of course,” says the Finance Professor Marc Oliver Rieger, University of Trier. A global dispersion of ETF helps in the case of regional crises, because they spread risk over the entire Globe. “But what has helped greatly is to provide a broad diversification across sectors, the ETF anyway,” says Rieger, who is called as a Negative example, the share of Deutsche Lufthansa, which had lost in consequence of the Corona pandemic, about half of its value before you could at least make some of their losses.

Consumers should pay attention to the cost

If the bots have to be truncated in comparison to the classic financial advisors better or worse, you can not seriously judge. A breach of trust, the bots have not suffered but apparently. Four providers with which the Süddeutsche Zeitung has spoken to, report that they were able to welcome new customers in the crisis, and of your managed assets increased.

“At the beginning of the year and immediately prior to the outbreak of the crisis, the equity risks were very low, therefore, the Portfolios were invested relatively heavily in equities. In the crisis, the stock market slumped courses faster than ever before in stock market history,” says Erik Podzuweit, co-founder and CEO of Scalable Capital. The Robo managed since the end of last year, more than two billion euros, making it the market leader in Germany. Especially the higher risk categories in which the share of equities is larger than in the lower categories, broke in Scalable reduced by up to 18.8 percent minus. “Because we have seen due to the high percentage of shares, to the beginning of the year, significant price gains, the overall performance for the current year across all risk categories considered in the context of the industry,” says Podzuweit. The Online comparison portal Brokervergleich.de Scalable ranked at the end of April in the Three-months-real-money test beaten off with a loss of 18.5 per cent, far as the tail light in the ranking list. The Online asset management of Sutor Bank on the penultimate rank of 10.1 percent.

Particularly painful the fall was, therefore, for those investors with a high proportion of equity securities at greater risk are risks than those that rely on solid bonds. According to the statistics, not a Robo Advisor in the months of February to April, better than Kapilendo with a decline of only 4.1 percent. In the balance of the year from may 2019 to the end of April, the provider remained even with 1.9 percent in the Plus, only Comdirect by Commerzbank was even more successful. “Our all-weather Portfolio is constructed so that it can generate equity-like returns with only a third of the risk. That’s the way it has behaved in the crisis. Over the period of a year, our all weather approach is – in spite of the Corona-crisis – back in the Plus,” says Björn Siegismund, Chief Investment Officer of the Kapilendo AG. “So how the Portfolio is positioned, we have to conclude, therefore, very good prospects with a positive result for the year. The shares do not need to reach markets once the old highs,” believes Siegismund.

When competitors Visualvest losses in the Corona-crisis, with 6.6 percent minus compared to the industry also were limited. “The asset classes with the largest losses were in the equity and commodity area. But the fixed-income annuity segments of the corporate bonds and the emerging markets showed deep red in the value. Only the classic government bonds were able to profit from the Corona-crisis as a safe haven,” says managing Director Max Holzer. State bonds received in Visualvest a “celebrity-ness”, however, the slightly positive development in this asset class, could mitigate the clear negative trends for all other asset classes, just a little.

Not every Robo follows a passive strategy

Experts warn not to look only at the Performance of past results say nothing about the future. Basically a diversified Portfolio with equities is attractive in the long term, if you can withstand temporary losses. Many of the Robo Advisors will put the money in the world, wide to diversified across different asset classes. Also, a Fund Manager can do little better. Robo Advisor have the advantage that they draw the so-called Re-Balancing automatically. If the investor has opted for a risk class, the Robo that the weighting between stocks and, for example, bonds, remains always the same, regardless of how the classes develop. From 30 per cent share may be 40 percent. The shift ensures that the value of the individual investment corresponds to the categories of the original share.

The Service will cost the client fees. Consumer advocates advise you to inform yourself in detail about the cost. Confirmed, you will feel at Growney, who is considered to be one of the cheapest suppliers on the market. “We were able to show in the crisis that our passive investment strategies are working. We have a great name, a Pro-active strategy to propagate again left behind us”, says Thimm views of the village, responsible for the customer’s business, Growney. Classic Robos to work with a passive strategy, with ETF track an Index such as the Dax or the MSCI World 1:1. You do not engage in active stock selection by a Fund Manager. “We expect the markets to remain in the future is turbulent, therefore, we have refined the composition of our investment strategies easily in order to achieve a better robustness. Also, in the future, we will consistently focus on savings plans,” says Blickensdorf. Investors could start with smaller amounts. In the case of savings plans, investors have the advantage that you don’t have to look for the right entry point.

The slump in the share prices as a result of the Corona pandemic is also a hardness test for the Robo Advisors. In the past few years, as the courses developed to be robust, were bots as reliable tools to be able to be a capital-wide to create, without great care of it. In the case of the market leader, Scalable, you don’t want to say the descent to overstate: “A valid Performance comparison is only after the crisis is possible,” managing Director Podzuweit. The share prices could well fall again. “Therefore it will show only after the crisis, how what is the strategy has failed.”