Wealthtech

B

y Vasyl Soloshchuk, CEO and Co-Owner at INSART

Rebalancing software is an essential part of a typical wealth manager’s toolkit. With so many wealth-management companies out there, there are a few that focus on rebalancing suites that offer advisors a range of features and benefits. In this article, we will guide you through the most popular solutions on the market. You’ll learn about:

With plenty of digital tools present in the market, wealth managers have numerous ways of adding edge to their offerings and building smart portfolios. However, while all the instruments have similar features and a certain degree of customization, when getting down to the actual task of choosing a rebalancing partner things get slightly complicated. Here, we provide an overview and compare a few rebalancing solutions to help with the selection process.

Morningstar Total Rebalance Expert (tRx)

Offering snapshot

: Affordable, tax-efficient, and simple to rebalance with software created by a CPA. Sheryl Rowling’s creation became a top-tier company in the investment advisory world. tRx is easy and quick to implement. The software offers outside accounts management capabilities and gives a 360-degree view of all household accounts. Following a recent team-up with Fix Flyer, any trades by tRx are now sent directly to a particular broker through FIX using processing protocols.

Morningstar-tRx

Features:

Quick analysis of accounts, cash management, tax-loss harvesting, and held-away accounts; five review levels; capital gain distribution avoidance (CGDA); location optimization; security equivalences; custom trade minimums; custom-tailoring to RIAs’ needs; report generator.

Basic pricing:

From 7,500 USD per year

Set-up time:

2–3 weeks

Integrations:

Morningstar Office, Orion Advisor Services, PortfolioCenter, FinFolio, Black Diamond, Asset Book, TPX (PowerAdvisor), Advent Axys, TPortal

TradeWarrior

Offering snapshot:

TradeWarrior offers a 100% white-label on-demand solution to accommodate the specific needs of any wealth manager. Its easy-to-use interface, along with its clean layout, guarantee exceptional usability. TradeWarrior facilitates simple to highly sophisticated asset-allocation strategies, giving plenty of room for advisors to manage highly varied portfolios across clients.

TradeWarrior

Features:

Available in both desktop and web-based versions; quick analysis of accounts, cash management, tax-loss harvesting, and held-away accounts; two review levels; CGDA; location optimization; security equivalences; custom trade minimums; custom-tailoring to RIAs’ needs; report generator

Basic pricing:

From 333 USD per month

Set-up time:

3–4 weeks

Integrations:

Morningstar Office, Orion Advisor Services, PortfolioCenter, FinFolio, Black Diamond, Asset Book, TPX (PowerAdvisor), Advent Axys, TPortal

FinFolio

Offering snapshot

: FinFolio offers multi-currency, tax-efficient trading via different models within a single portfolio. The software allows advisors to rebalance to asset-class and submodel levels for both unified and separately managed accounts.

The solution enables rebalancing case by case or automatically, according to a defined schedule. RIAs can review statistics in order to make weighted decisions before proceeding with actual rebalancing. the software also offers branching capabilities to enable grouping of assets by multiple categories, including class, business segment, industry, etc.

Using sophisticated target models, the rebalancing engine offers options to define rules and identify position minimums, as well as to set complex trade restrictions if necessary. User-friendly tax screens allow advisors to harvest gains or losses across an entire set of accounts or by a specific lot.

FinFolio

Features:

Cloud-based and desktop solutions; quick analysis of accounts, cash management, tax-loss harvesting, and held-away accounts; five review levels; CGDA; location optimization; security equivalences; custom trade minimums; custom-tailoring to RIAs’ needs; client billing and reporting

Basic pricing:

10,000 USD per year

Set-up time:

4–5 weeks

Integrations:

Salesforce, Dynamics, Junxure, TRX, Trade Warrior, RealTime Trading-Sungard SGN, FactSet, IDC, Bloomberg Data License, Xignites, Box.com, AdvisorProducts, numerous custodians

Blaze Portfolio’s ATOM Align

Offering snapshot:

Blaze Portfolio is another trade-order management solutions provider that, among other offerings, provides a portfolio rebalancing component. The company offers solutions to a large pool of clients and serves the needs of RIAs, investment and wealth managers, as well as broker-dealers and family offices. Its Atom Align is a web-based portfolio-modeling and trade-order management engine with an intuitive design and comprehensive features, including real-time electronic trading through Financial Information eXchange, block order management, and trade compliance.

Blaze Portfolio

Features:

Cloud-based software; quick analysis of accounts, cash management, tax-loss harvesting, and held-away accounts; two review levels; CGDA; location optimization; security equivalences; custom trade minimums; custom-tailoring to RIAs’ needs

Basic pricing:

10,000–14,000 USD per year

Set-up time:

4 weeks

Integrations:

SS&C Advent, Black Diamond Link for APX and Axys, Addepar, Schwab Performance Technologies, Morningstar Office, Asset Book, Portfolio Pathways, BridgePortfolio, Orion Advisor Services, SunGard, Xignite, Real Time Electronic Trading

ASI Portfolio Rebalancing Solution

Offering snapshot:

ASI Advisor Software, which is part of Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, is another provider of rebalancing solutions. Its Portfolio Rebalancer was created to support global custodial platforms in rebalancing vast numbers of accounts quickly. The engine allows for real-time and nightly rebalancing, helping wealth managers take care of large numbers of accounts. The software supports firm-based and user permissions, model preferences, as well as rules for rebalancing. Its efficient alert system provides a streamlined workflow, automated scheduling, and real-time drift notifications.

ASI

Features:

Web-based solution; quick analysis of accounts and cash management; two review levels; CGDA; security equivalences; custom trade minimums; custom-tailoring to RIAs’ needs; report generator

Basic pricing:

Not disclosed

Set-up time:

1 day

Integrations:

Salesforce, TD Ameritrade Institutional, Grendel, AssetBook, Redtail, Tiburon Strategic Advisors, Morningstar, S&P Down Jones Indices, Lipper

RedBlack Rebalance Express

Offering snapshot:

RedBlack promises to streamline the investment process and help advisors scale their businesses. Advanced rebalancing and trading becomes effortless with one of the most cutting-edge solutions on the market. Through its integration with FIX, RedBlack can connect users with more than 400 sell-side companies.

RedBlack

Features:

Desktop and web-based solutions; quick analysis of accounts, cash management, tax-loss harvesting, and held-away accounts; three review levels; CGDA; location optimization; security equivalences; custom trade minimums; custom-tailoring to RIAs’ needs; report generation

Basic pricing:

Not disclosed

Set-up time:

1 week

Integrations:

Addepar, Advent APX, Advent Axys, AssetBook, Black Diamond, Blueleaf, Envestnet Advisor Suite, Fortigent, Infovisa Maui, Morningstar Office, Orion, Pershing PES, PortfolioCenter, Principia CAMS, Tamarac Advisor Xi Suite, TrustDesk

Envestnet by Tamarac’s Advisor Rebalancing

Offering snapshot:

Tamarac claims to be the leader when it comes to rebalancing portfolios. Its Tamarac Trading solution offers more than typical portfolio rebalancing. The firm offers automation of model portfolio construction and management, account monitoring and control for trading triggers, as well as tactical trades. The Tamarac engine brings together reporting and trading under one roof, offering a simple user interface.

Envestnet

Features:

Cloud-based offering; quick analysis of accounts, cash management, tax-loss harvesting, and held-away accounts; unlimited review levels; CGDA; location optimization; security equivalences; custom trade minimums; custom-tailoring to RIAs’ needs; report generation

Basic pricing:

Not disclosed

Set-up time:

1–2 weeks

Integrations:

Envestnet, Yodlee, FactSet, Morningstar By All Accounts, Advisor CRM by Tamarac, Junxure, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce.com, Schwab Advisor Services, Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services, Merrill Lynch, Pershing Advisor Solutions, Raymond James, TD Ameritrade Institutional, Jefferson National

TD Ameritrade’s iRebal

Offering snapshot

: TD Ameritrade has capitalized on “intelligent rebalancing” via its iRebal, which enables tax-efficient rebalancing, dynamic cash management, tax-loss harvesting, and more. Additionally, iRebal is offered at no cost to TD Ameritrade Institutional brokerage accounts.

TD Ameritrade

Features:

Cloud-based and desktop products; quick analysis of accounts, cash management, tax-loss harvesting, and held-away accounts; unlimited review levels; CGDA; location optimization; security equivalences; custom trade minimums; custom-tailoring to RIAs’ needs; report generation

Basic pricing:

Cloud version free for TDA accounts; standalone version starts at 20,000 USD per year

Set-up time:

1 day

Integrations:

Orion, PortfolioCenter, Tamarac, Advent Axys and APX, Black Diamond, Veo, Veo One, Envestnet, Morningstar, as well as other custom interfaces

Smartleaf

This company is another major player, offering a whole new level of rebalancing software. Smartleaf is a popular top-tier provider of automated portfolio rebalancing and tax-efficient solutions. The firm creates a seamless experience for wealth managers, RIAs, broker-dealers, banks, and turnkey asset-management programs. Being highly customizable, its toolkit enables users to offer an exclusive value proposition to each client, tailored to their investment philosophy and goals. Smartleaf has strategic partnerships with Bank of Hawaii, APEX Clearing, US Bank, and many other institutions.

Smartleaf

Other Options

Apart from the popular offerings outlined above, a number of other rebalancing solutions are worth mentioning.

For example, Fidelity Investments has variety of tools for portfolio management. Its advanced modeling and rebalancing solutions are fully integrated with Wealthscape. Similarly, Wells Fargo’s digital account rebalancing engine for advisors, called ART, can be used to forecast returns, see how allocation changes impact forecasts, and obtain recommended buys and sells needed to rebalance the portfolio. Furthermore, in Canada, Croesus offers a modeling and rebalancing component among its portfolio-management solutions. The firm is on a mission to reduce the need for manual data entry and eliminate potential errors through its SMA and UMA modeling and rebalancing module.

The decision on which rebalancing software to use depends on many factors. While the main features are fairly similar across all platforms, integrations with custodian banks might play a major role when choosing a tool for effective asset management.

Vasyl Soloshchuk, CEO and co-owner at INSART, FinTech & Java engineering company. Vasyl is also author of the WealthTech Club blog, which conducts research into Fortune and Startup Robo-advisor and Wealth Management companies in terms of the technology ecosystem.