
Show HN: Senzu – collection of robo advisors, p2p lending and more - kilimchoi
https://senzu.io/investing
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qwrusz
I definitely think investing is confusing to some folks, especially when just
starting out it can be intimidating. There's a huge opportunity for new tech
ideas and solutions to help clarify and simplify getting started with
investing.

So cheers for working on this problem.

I don't mean to hate on your new product...But what the hell are those
estimated returns numbers?

Those should probably be removed asap.

I'm not sure where you are in the building/testing phase for this so maybe a
lot more changes are coming. At this point it's not obvious this first
iteration simplifies investing for someone new to it and may seriously be
making things worse. Put yourself in the shoes of a first time investor
arriving at your site, might they still have questions before feeling ready to
choose an investment company to click on and are you helping answer at least
some of those initial questions...

What are those risk and liquidity things? How did you come up with that? Are
blue links affiliate links to these companies? if so are there no rules for
these programs?

Are you guys comfortable with how robo-advisors and investing work?...Each
clients situation will be unique based on things like their age and their
goals, etc. so information should be presented with that in mind. If you're
not comfortable with details of this stuff I would think twice before
launching this particular site.

Sorry if this came across as rude. I wouldn't want someone to get confused or
deceived.

Happy to answer any questions.

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zazpowered
What's wrong with the estimated returns? Also what do you think would help
simplify this for first time investors. What details are you referring to when
you talk about how robo-advisors or investing works?

~~~
qwrusz
How can you estimate returns?

When it comes to investment products like these, _there is no way to know what
the future return will be_.

Imagine for example a new first time investor visits the site. They are
unfamiliar with these types of products. If they see something like "estimated
returns: 8.5%" that person might mistakenly think that's the type of return
from choosing that investment company.... Which of course is not true. It
could be higher it could be _much_ lower. No one knows what will happen in the
stock and bond markets in the future.

Now I realize you are not selling these investment products yourself, but the
government's rules for disclosure and advertising can give a lot of insight
about how to avoid confusing or misleading potential investors. You will see
even in cases where past performance is mentioned, there is a clear disclaimer
that 'past performance is no guarantee of its future success'. If one needs to
be that careful to avoid confusion regarding showing past returns, hopefully
you see why estimating future returns are treated even stricter.
[https://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/mfperform.htm](https://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/mfperform.htm)

How did you get those numbers?

~~~
zazpowered
I see what you're saying. For most of the robo-advisors it is the past
performance our portfolio on each platform from 2013-2015. We hook into an API
so we can see how each portfolio is doing. For the other ones it's usually the
return advertised on their website. A lot of these platforms advertise a
return rate on their website but you're right that they add that "past
performance is not a guarantee of future performance".

If you hover over some of the elements you will see more info

~~~
qwrusz
OK, I'm not sure what past performance you pulled off these companies
websites. But for your portfolios you seem to be claiming you have a 90/10\.
So I am guessing you are relatively young, in your 20s maybe early 30s. Are
the numbers you got from the other websites the same portfolio? If not, I
don't think it's fair to put them side by side like that.

If you want to use a 90/10 you can but something for a more typical portfolio
or a way to adjust the buckets seems to be a more common practice. One reason
is if a person visits a site and just sees returns from a 90/10, that would be
misleading if this person needs a totally different portfolio with a different
risk profile (maybe someone a bit older who needs a 60/40). More text can help
clarify what is going on.

I clicked on the Acorns portfolio and it's not even technically 90/10\. It's
30% real estate - it's biggest holding. This isn't your fault as many people
can and do call REITs stocks because of them being traded on stock exchanges.
But really they are trusts investing in real estate. So if someone already
owns or is about to buy real estate and they want to diversity their other
future savings into stocks and bonds, then calling REITs stocks is not
helpful.

Quote from Vanguard REIT website: "Appropriate for helping diversify the risks
of stocks and bonds in a portfolio." If REITs are stocks how are they
appropriate to help diversify the risk of stocks....Can be confusing to
someone new to investing.
[https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundIntExt=I...](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundIntExt=INT&FundId=0986)

One more thing to keep an eye on is how you show returns if you are going to.
Averaging annual returns or annualized returns can be tricky.

For example. If the last three years returns are 8%, 8% and 8%. Are the
average returns 8% or 8.7%?

This gets more extreme with real numbers as just in the last 10 years stocks
have been as low -37% and as high as +32%. Whats the average return for these
years -2.5% or -8.4%. Big difference.

Just to be clear I think it's OK to compare products side by side and show
historical returns. But I would be really careful that you're disclosing the
necessary information and making sure you are comparing the same things apples
to apples.

~~~
qwrusz
This a link to GIPS. The Global Investment Performance Standards website.
There's a ton of information on there and a lot of it won't be needed for your
project. But going through the handbook might be useful.

GIPS is "A global standard for investment performance reporting gives
investors around the world the additional transparency they need to compare
and evaluate investment managers."

There's a link to the current handbook on the right. It's free.

[https://www.gipsstandards.org/Pages/index.aspx](https://www.gipsstandards.org/Pages/index.aspx)

~~~
zazpowered
Cool. Thanks for all the feedback!

