Both of our do-it-yourself money management systems (here and here) give you the choice of opening your own discount brokerage account and make your own trades, or you can hire us to be your money manager to custody your accounts just like a local adviser.

We have turnkey systems for managing money along with a long-term track record of historical returns.

What a turnkey system means is that all you have to do is insert the key (buy it), and then turn the crank (read the directions), and the black box spits out the finished product all ready to use in the Real World (actual portfolios). This allows you to manage your money without having to use or buy any other investing software.

Few vendors have a system that will create and implement suitable investment portfolios all the way down to recommending actual investments to buy (which is why few have an historical investment performance track record).

Our DIY turnkey investment systems may save you thousands annually paid to investment advisers doing similar things, but not nearly as well.

The results are unique, personalized, and custom investment portfolios that you can create and implement yourself. There are step-by-step directions, and you can add support to get help and talk with a seasoned expert about all kinds of things with no conflicts of interest.

The two turnkey money management systems we offer for do-it-yourself investors are the comprehensive asset allocation software and the Model Portfolios. They are two different programs with different pricing tables.

Both are viable alternatives if you, or your advisor keeps losing money, charges too much, or continually lag behind the markets.

Now you can build your own investment portfolios that are more suitable to your life than investment managers would recommend; with less risk, more than likely better returns, while saving the money they'd charge.

Look at the historical returns of the no-load mutual fund models, the graphs on the demo, and the main asset allocation page and compare (the track record on the asset allocation page is for the Fee-Based Aggressive model (or the Fee-Based Moderate Model Portfolio when markets are down) but they're very similar to the no-load models).

The returns are most likely much better than what you, or your advisor, have been getting.

All it takes to double your retirement income is getting just 2% to 3% more in return over a 20-year period (the math proof is in the free Money e-Book).

Once you compare, you'll see that these model allocations have probably done better than just 3% over a time frame longer than five years compared to what you have now.

Brief Summary of the Investing Model Portfolios

Our asset allocation models are a superb turnkey system for the individual investor. It helps you quickly build long-term, inexpensive, low-transaction, simple, easy-to-manage, and well-diversified investment portfolios.

All you'd need to do is use the investment fact finder to determine investment risk tolerance, and then allocate using the appropriate investor model using the mutual fund picks (or ETF / Index fund picks, or use your own investment picks).

So you should get the investment fact finder because a wrong guess may result in sub-par results. It's been refined by evaluating just about every other investing tool that performs this function since 1988.

It's also important to subscribe to get monthly-updates to keep your investment portfolios updated with fresh no-load funds, ETFs, or index funds selections.

You can ignore the Fee-Based and All Load Models, because you would have to pay the front-end commission / loads. Models of interest are the No-load and Index Funds.

Brief Summary of the Comprehensive Asset Allocation Software

Our asset allocator software excels at matching investment portfolios to the lives of investors.

Then you should subscribe to the mutual fund picks subscription so you can stay updated with the new funds and minimize holding old ones that go bad.

Read the differences between the Asset Allocation Software and the Asset Allocation Models

Both systems let you use only your favorite mutual fund families.

So this is the solution if you're in a situation like a 401(k), where you're "stuck" with limited investment options.

For example several, like Fidelity, Vanguard, T. Rowe Price, and Oppenhiemer, have over a dozen asset classes. Our American Funds Model uses all eight of theirs.

Which system to use depends on two main factors: It takes ~$100,000 to fully-fund the Moderate No-load Model. There's are also no-load models that can be funded with $60,000 or $20,000.

If you have more than $125,000, then you may be better off using the allocation software. This takes much more work, whereas the models require little-to-no work. Then you'd be able to spend as much time as you wanted tinkering with the details, which is what matches investment portfolios to an investor's life.

About Other DIY Investing Systems

There's no comparisons with competing programs listed here, because there are no competing programs. Some custodians have online tools to perform these functions for free after you've transferred money to your account. We'll be looking around and posting systems that are noteworthy here over time. At the moment, we are unaware of competing DIY systems.

Our models are the same type of service that TD Ameritrade was spending millions advertising on TV, but it looks like they discontinued it, as we can't find it on their site anymore. They basically finally got around to copying our model service that's been around for over a dozen years, and made a way for the masses to get a generic version of what we're doing.

If you know of any do-it-yourself investing systems an individual investor can invest in for under $150,000 that gives you 16+ asset class diversification, and returns even close to ours, then please let us know and you may get something from the site for free.

The difference is that here you're getting an actual seasoned veteran doing the work, instead of a who knows who with no track record (and in who knows what third-world country).

Then they will want to steer you into buying the same old lame bloated mutual funds that Morningstar probably got paid off to recommend (e.g., American Funds).

This is just a recipe for the same mediocre medium-risk medium-return results everyone has been getting for decades. Our models are the real original deal that many others just copy, and then abandon a year later.

Investment software like Morningstar, Ibbotson (which was bought out by Morningstar in '06), and other code-driven investment software have all of the tools to allow you to manage money, but only after you already have an investment strategy and methodology set up to do so.

You or an investment manager still needs to develop an actual system to do the work of portfolio management before you can use their investing software to put it into practice, evaluate allocations, or calculate statistics on backtested results. They do not "tell you how to invest."

Other than having a database of historic asset returns, an automatic way to download online investment account data into the asset allocation program (to self-input the current portfolio), making trades, and a having a built-in portfolio optimizer, this investment software does everything, and more, compared to other vendors. To buy these missing functions requires spending $500 to $5,000 more annually.

To see the usual array of portfolio statistics (beta, Treynor, Sharpe, etc.), you'd need to buy investment software with a very large database of monthly historical asset returns. Usually only large vendors like Morningstar, or ones that sell asset-level portfolio optimizers, have this.

Our asset allocation calculator has a very scaled-down way to calculate most of these stats, but there's a very important reason why we chose not to do a full-blown programming endeavor in this area (AKA re-inventing the portfolio optimizer):

The bottom-line is that not one of these things (sigma, beta, Jenson, Treynor, Sharpe, etc.) have any predictive value whatsoever.

It's interesting to see what these stats have been in the past on whole portfolios, and/or on individual assets, but NONE of them have any consistency at all. If they "flop around wildly all the time at random," then they are TOTALLY USELESS in making any future predictions. If they did have any predictive value, even just a little bit, then we'd have been using them over a decade ago.

Yes, this means that all work done "backtesting" is most futile. You can spend hundreds of hours creating the most efficient portfolio humanity has ever seen, then as soon as you implement it in the Real World, it's almost guaranteed to greatly disappoint everyone.

While I was taking the CFA courses, I made a big fuss about each one of these stats via actual client portfolios in the Real World, using both Morningstar and the best asset-level portfolio optimizer.

The results: not one stat added any value to the process whatsoever - NOT ONE, not even beta! So since none of that works to help out on anything, we just don't go there. But we did make the one sheet on the asset allocation software for people that are interested in these portfolio statistics, as a "freebie add-on."

The main reason we did that (even though they're all useless in predicting future performance) is because publishing the Fee-Based Moderate Model's alpha number on the model demo, and the asset allocator demo properly proves how well it usually outperforms.

It also settles the ageless debate, once and for all, that active investment management can outperform passive management, after expenses, more than enough of the time to make it worthy.

So other vendors offer little-to-no systems to actually do much that's useful, because:

• It's too hard to for them to program and maintain,

• They're too cheap to employ real money managers to help them come up with a feasible turnkey system, so they don't know how,

• If they wanted to, then their marketing department would take the project over, then they'd just get "paid off" to tout things like American Funds as the funding vehicles. Then the actual results would be very "sub-par."

• They're afraid of compliance problems and don't want to be on the hook as being labeled a fiduciary (because they know their buggy software will just get them into trouble),

So even if they did spend the resources to develop a working turnkey system, few of their customers would actually buy and use it.

So from their point of view, big expensive projects like this would just be a risky endeavor, which would create a never-ending parade of new problems, so it would just fail because they wouldn't be able to charge enough for it to turn a profit.

Now let the comparisons begin (this is going to be a WIP for years):

About Cloud Computing

DFA

This is going to be a WIP for years. Sorry, but other more profitable projects keep coming up.

More Marketing Stuff

With either of these money tools, you can fire your money-losing investment advisor that brainwashed you into thinking they could pick stocks / ETFs and/or time the markets.

None of that nonsense ever has ever worked out well for anybody, it's not working now, and it never ever will.

If you're working with one of these types of advisers, just look at your account. How's it doing?

Are you up more than the S&P 500 since the beginning of the year (or down less)?

No, and not by a long shot? Then why do you keep feeding them big money?

Things are not going to magically "turn around." Everything is just going to keep going like this forever until you fire them.

They're not just going to wake up one day and realize, "What was I thinking with my delusions that I could predict the future by guessing which stock or ETF will go up or down today? I'm going to turn over a new leaf and stop doing all of that nonsense starting today!"

Ha! This never ever happens, so wake up. Whatever your reason is for not firing them, just ask yourself, is it worth being "poor" in your golden years just to keep all of that going? Why?

You fire them by just transferring your account to a modern custodian like Ameritrade, Scottrade, or Charles Schwab, using the "ACAT" process.

It's easy. You'd just decide which discount brokerage firm to go with, and then which type of account is best for you, then fill out their forms, and they will pretty much just automatically transfer all of your money to the new self-directed account you opened up.

You can do the vast majority of it online in less than an hour in your pajamas without even going into their office.

Then when the forms reach your advisor, they pretty much have to just turn the crank and let everything transfer. They really have no say in the matter.

You're stuck with all of the life insurance company product they sold you, but all of the investment securities, no - they just have to do their end of the paperwork, then it's hasta la vista baby.

Then when they whine, just say, "I think I can get better performance, with less risk, and not have to pay you anything by doing it all myself."

Just endure the whining and it will soon pass and then that will be the end of that. Just get on with your life, and you'll forget all about them soon enough.

If you hired them via any kind of a fee for services basis, then you'll probably even get a nice chunk of money back as a refund of pre-paid fees. Most of the time, after you've made the new trades in your new account, you'll still have money left over because of this refund (if your RIA bills in advance).

If you're hesitant because you paid initial sales charges, then guess what? That money is gone forever no matter what you do. But if you sell investments at a loss (depending on how long you've held them), even if it's just because of the commissions, then you can claim that loss as a deduction against future profits.

Then you can save all of their commissions and fees - forever!

You've probably had consolidating your old 401(k)s and IRAs into one rollover IRA on your To-Do list for years anyway, so why not just do it all now?

Then after setting up a self-directed investment account with a new custodian, it's just a few hours reading our directions, then a few minutes work to use the investment fact finder to select a portfolio model.

Then less than half an hour making the trades, and you're done (other than keeping up with the monthly fund switches, and quarterly rebalancing - which are all explained in great detail in the directions).

You don't have to sell everything or anything in your current portfolio to obtain the correct mix with either program. For example, if you already own 20% of a large-cap growth fund that's doing fine, and you scored Moderate risk tolerance, then you'd only need to sell 5% of it, because the recommendation is 15%. Actually, you could leave it the way it is, because you can do anything you want. You could just stay overweighted, or let 5% spill into the Mid-cap asset class, because they usually do.

Then for the rest of your life, it's: No more hype, worries, lies, self-enrichment schemes, phone tag, conflicts of interest, confusing / bad advice, trust issues, commissions, or investment management fees to pay again - ever!

You'll also be able to look at your account anytime online, make your own trades, and do a better job by managing your own investments, just by reading the directions (and all of the tutorials on this site).

Everything has support, so you can get help with this, custom mutual fund replacements for those you can't buy from your custodian, advice on how to buy mutual funds if you have less than the minimums, and whatever it takes to get your portfolios all set up and running right.

We keep getting the same questions about our unusual investment performance, so here's an old client e-mail paste that will help:

Yes on one hand, the investment performance is remarkable. On the other hand it shouldn't be, because it's exactly what the CFA program teaches.

I'm apparently the one CFA Charterholder that practices exactly what's taught. Everyone else went off to get rich being a hedge fund manager or creating derivatives like CDSs that started the '08 financial crisis.

What the CFA program teaches in a nutshell is this: Advisors should not be market timing at all, period. Nobody can predict the future, so this is worse than futile. Trading ETFs is just the current form of market timing (that replaced the last century's stock jockeys).

Advisors should also not be trying to pick stocks, unless they have quasi-insider information, like they work for the company, used to work there, or know someone working there that's not technically an insider that's feeding them accurate and timely information. The only "people" that have enough information, resources, and data to profit by picking stocks (and/or time markets) are large institutions like mutual funds.

So once that battle is understood and won, and since there are only three ways to make investment decisions, and the most popular two are taught to be no-no's by the CFA program, there's only one methodology left - asset allocation.

So I took that to mean this is what I should become an expert on, because my business was managing money for investors in an RIA and financial planning setting.

What you're supposed to do is determine a mix of viable asset classes that fits an individual investor's life, and then either fund it with something very diversified like mutual funds, ETFs, or index funds (the CFA program likes index funds, as most advisers can't even pick open-ended mutual funds, or ETFs, well enough to beat an index fund).

So the questions then become, how do you determine what asset classes to use and how much? Well, I did it in both the Comprehensive Asset Allocation software and the Model Portfolios using the best asset-level portfolio optimizer, educated guesses, and way too much trial and error. After doing it thousands of times, I found what works and am sticking with it.

I've looked at everyone else's harebrained investment strategies since the mid-'80s, and found none to be better. I've stolen many ideas from many advisers (mostly from dozens of job interviews), and so I've tinkered with just about everything everyone else has come up with since '88 with actual client monies. The ideas that worked, I keep, and the ones that don't, I criticize.

Once that battle is over, the war is reduced to just deciding what to fund the asset classes with. To make a very long story short: Stocks - no, there's no enough diversification compared to a mutual fund that may own 100 stocks. Closed-end funds, no - there's no way to screen them to get any predictive value whatsoever because of the large and random premiums and discounts due to thin trading. ETFs, no they're mostly just lame index funds... with the same internal fees as non-index mutual funds (then commissions to pay when you both buy and sell them - plus the mutual fund picks also usually beat ETFs). Index funds, maybe, but the way pen-ended mutual funds are selected creams index funds by way too large of a margin about 90% of the time.

So all of these questions are answered; war over: The way our investing software allocates asset classes and then screen mutual funds adds plenty of value to the investment process, so we're sticking with it to the bitter end.

The magic isn't all in the infrastructure (the allocation software), it has a lot to do with finding predictive value in the mutual fund picks.

I look at many things, like historical performance, and try to predict what will keep up doing what it's been doing long enough to be useful. After thousands of trials and errors, I found a way to pick mutual funds that have a one- to two-year predictive value (all mutual funds crap out eventually and have to be replaced, which is why it's critical to keep the subscription going and rebalance. When I say crapped out, I don't mean it in a smelly sense, but the casino gambling way).

It doesn't always work (read about that on the disadvantages of asset allocation section of this page), but the winning picks beat the duds enough to add plenty of long-term value. Plus every month I learn something new, so the screening process is continually refined and saved, so it gets better all the time.

About importing investment holdings data from the web into our asset allocation calculator.

Financial Planning Software Modules For Sale
(are listed below)

Financial Planning Software that's Fully-Integrated
(the IFP is the NaviPlan alternative for 1/6th the price)

Goals-Only "Financial Planning Software"
(the MoneyGuidePro alternative for 1% of their price)

Retirement Planning Software Menu: Something for Everyone
(the RWRs, RP, and SRP)

Comprehensive Asset Allocation Software

Model Portfolio Allocations with Historical Returns

Monthly-updated ETF and Mutual Fund Picks

DIY Investment Portfolio Benchmarking Program

Financial Planning Fact Finders for Financial Planners Gathering Data from Clients

Investment Policy Statement Software (IPS)

Life Insurance Calculator (AKA Capital Needs Analysis Software)