Robo-advisors: Just another distribution channel?

In response to my last blog, 5 Reasons Most Robo-Advisors Are Not, in Fact, Advisors, an industry “consultant” sent me an email that included one concern and a couple of poignant comments that help clarify the “robo advisory business.” First, here’s his concern: “Your latest installment starts right out of the gate with the implicit premise that active management leveraging sophisticated portfolio analysis – code in full service advisory firms for “What are we selling this month?” – results in superior performance. The facts just don’t bear that out. Money invested in an S&P 500 index fund has always outperformed 95 percent of all actively managed “large cap” funds.”