Titan Review 2024: Pros, Cons and How It Compares
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Our Take
4.1
Reviewed in: Oct. 2023
Period considered: Aug. - Oct. 2023
The bottom line:
Unpaid non-client promotion
Pros & Cons
Pros
Free automated stock and bond portfolios.
Crypto management available.
Actively managed stock and alternative asset portfolios.
Cons
Customer service not available by phone.
No intentional tax strategy.
$500 account minimum.
Compare to Other Advisors
Fees Varies by Advisor (free initial consultation) | Fees 0% management fee | Fees 0.25% management fee |
Account minimum $150,000 | Account minimum $0 | Account minimum $500 |
Promotion 3-Month Satisfaction Guarantee | Promotion 1% match on IRA contributions Only offers made via ACH are eligible for the match. ACATs, wires, and rollovers are not included. | Promotion Get a $50 customer bonus when you fund your first taxable investment account |
Learn more on Zoe Financial's website | Learn more on SoFi Invest's website | Learn more on Wealthfront's website |
AD Paid non-client promotion | AD Paid non-client promotion | AD Paid non-client promotion |
NerdWallet doesn’t invest its money with this provider, but they are our referral partner – so we get paid only if you click through and take a qualifying action (such as open an account with or provide your contact information to the provider). Most importantly, our reviews and ratings are objective and are never impacted by our partnerships. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here’s how we make money.
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Full Review
Where Titan shines
Free stock and bond portfolios. If all you’re looking for is stock and bond management, Titan will do it for you for free.
Active management strategy: Titan should not be thought of as a typical robo-advisor: While Titan does give investors free access to stock and bond portfolios, it also gives investors access to actively managed portfolios and alternative investments. These strategies can involve a high amount of risk, which should be taken into consideration.
Crypto: Titan gives investors access to crypto management.
Where Titan falls short
No additional services: Titan offers stock and alternative investment management — but that’s about it. Other investment management firms include features such as access to certified financial planners, banking services, goal setting, socially responsible investment portfolios and intentional tax strategies. And many of them charge less than what Titan charges.
High account minimums: Most of Titan’s strategies, including the free ones, start with a $500 minimum.
Titan is best for:
Investors who want a free robo-advisor service.
Investors who want an actively managed stock portfolio.
Investors who want Wall Street-level intel and access to active investing strategies.
Titan at a glance
Reviewed: Oct. 2023
Period considered: Aug. - Oct. 2023
Account minimum | $500 for free stock and bond portfolios, actively managed stock portfolios, venture capital and crypto. $2,000 to $2,500 for private credit and real estate funds. |
Account management fee | Automated stock and bond portfolios have no management fee. Most advanced strategies range from 0.70% to 0.90% depending on your assets under management. |
Investment expense ratios | Free automated stock portfolio: 0.039%. Free automated bond portfolio: 0.10% to 0.12%. Actively managed stock portfolios: None. Private credit, venture capital strategy and real estate funds: 1.71% to 6.47%. |
Account fees | Outgoing account transfers are $100. IRA account closures are $100. |
Portfolio mix | Titan's free stock and bond portfolios utilize equity and bond exchange-traded funds. Clients can opt into as many or as few of the strategies as they'd like, including three actively managed stock portfolios, treasury money-market funds, private credit, real estate, venture capital and crypto. |
Socially responsible portfolio options | None. |
Accounts supported | Taxable accounts. Traditional, Roth and inherited/beneficiary IRAs. Titan can accommodate rollovers for all retirement accounts. |
Tax strategy | All-stock portfolios can naturally isolate individual investments and harvest losses. |
Automatic rebalancing | Automated stock and bond portfolios and the crypto strategy offer quarterly rebalancing. Actively managed stock strategies are rebalanced when the weights deviate widely. Private credit funds and real estate fund offer frequent rebalancing. |
Human advisor option | Unlimited access to licensed advisors, who can provide personalized investment advice. |
Bank account/cash management account option | Titan's Smart Cash automatically moves your money into either mutual funds or cash when there is a better rate. If remaining in cash, clients earn 3.2%. |
Customer support options (includes how easy it is to find key details on the website) | Titan customer service is available Monday to Friday 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern on weekends. Titan Virtual Assistant is available 24/7. There is also support via Twitter. |
More details about Titan's ratings
Account minimum: 4 out of 5 stars
Titan offers several investment strategies with minimums ranging from $500 to $2,500. That means to get started with Titan, even with their free portfolios, you have to have at least $500.
Account management fee: 3 out of 5 stars
Titan offers several investment portfolios that range from simple stock and bond portfolios to alternative assets such as venture capital and crypto. As a client, you can choose a combination of Titan’s various strategies, or get a portfolio recommendation from Titan.
Titan offers two portfolios free of a management fee: Automated Stocks and Automated Bonds. These portfolios are managed via a robo-advisor and are made up of exchange-traded funds, or ETFs.
While these portfolios do not charge a management fee, investors will still have to pay an expense ratio, which is an annual fee that covers a fund’s operating expenses. If you invest in a fund with a 1% expense ratio, you’ll pay $10 annually for every $1,000 invested. Expense ratios are subtracted from your investment balance automatically, which makes them easy to miss.
Automated Stocks | Automated Bonds | |
---|---|---|
Investment holdings | Large cap stock ETFs | Bond ETFs |
Investment minimum | $500 | $500 |
Expense ratio | 0.039% | 0.10% to 0.12% |
If you’re looking for an actively managed stock strategy, Titan offers three different ones. Titan also offers a Treasury money-market fund strategy.
Flagship | Opportunities | Offshore | Treasury | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Investment minimum | $500 | $500 | $500 | $5 |
Portfolio focus | Large cap, U.S.-focused | Small and mid cap, U.S.-focused | International-focused | Treasury money-market funds |
Management fee | By account balance: $500 - $24,999: 0.90% $25,000 - $99,999: 0.80% $100,000 or more: 0.70% | By account balance: $500 - $24,999: 0.90% $25,000 - $99,999: 0.80% $100,000 or more: 0.70% | By account balance: $500 - $24,999: 0.90% $25,000 - $99,999: 0.80% $100,000 or more: 0.70% | No management fee, 0.09% to 0.35% expense ratio |
Titan also offers four alternative asset strategies: Private credit, real estate, venture capital and crypto.
Private credit | Real estate | Venture capital | Crypto | |
---|---|---|---|---|
What are you investing in? | Carlyle Tactical Private Credit Fund (CTAC) Apollo Diversified Credit Fund (ADC) | Apollo Diversified Real Estate Fund | ARK Venture Fund | 50% Bitcoin, 50% Ethereum |
Investment minimum | CTAC: $2,000 ADC: $2,500 for initial investment, $50 for follow-up investments. | $2,500 for initial investment, $50 for follow-up investments. | $500 | $500 |
Titan’s free stock and bond portfolios are highly competitive since most other robo-advisors charge a management fee of 0.25% or higher. The actively managed stock strategies have higher fees, but they are similar to what you’d pay for with an actively managed fund. The alternative assets charge much higher fees — but those strategies are also rarely offered to individual investors.
» Want more options? Check out the best robo-advisors
Investment expense ratios: 3 out of 5 stars
Even though Titan’s portfolios are made up of stocks, the company occasionally uses inverse ETFs as part of its hedging strategy. These ETFs carry expense ratios between 0.90% and 0.95%. Those fees are quite high compared to other robo-advisors that typically employ ETFs as the main part of their portfolio strategy. But Titan only uses those ETFs to serve as possible protection from an extended market downturn, so you won’t pay expense ratios on the bulk of your portfolio. In contrast, if a robo-advisor charges a 0.25% management fee, expense ratios can make your total cost closer to 0.35%.
Titan’s free stock portfolio has an impressively low expense ratio, only 0.039%. The bond portfolio has a higher, but still decent, expense ratio of 0.10% to 0.12%.
Titan Flagship, Opportunities, Offshore, and Crypto strategies do not have expense ratios due to the structure of their strategy.
The private credit, venture capital strategy and real estate funds’ expense ratios range from 1.71% to 6.47%.
Account fees: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Titan’s fees include a $100 for outgoing ACAT transfers (per account) and a $100 IRA termination fee. Those fees are higher than many other providers we review.
Portfolio mix: 4 out of 5 stars
Titan’s automated stock portfolio focuses on U.S. large cap equities in the form of exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. These are all ETFs you could invest in on your own through an investment account, but since Titan doesn’t charge a management fee, you’re not having to pay for the convenience of investing through Titan.
Titan’s automated bond portfolio invests in several bond ETFs that give clients access to a wide variety of bond types, such as U.S. municipal bonds and investment-grade corporate bonds. Similarly to the automated stock portfolio, these are all ETFs you could buy on your own, but Titan takes the work out of doing so for free.
Titan features several stock and crypto based investment strategies: Flagship, Opportunities, Offshore and Crypto. Flagship, Opportunities and Offshore are actively managed stock strategies.
Titan’s private credit and real estate offerings require no accreditation and include quarterly liquidity. Typically, these types of offerings are only available to high net worth clientele.
Titan’s alternative portfolios carry a lot of risk, and that risk doesn’t always pay off. Investing in a smaller number of stocks and crypto can be riskier than investing in a few broad-market index funds or ETFs, which can hold hundreds of different stocks within a single investment.
Socially responsible portfolio options: 1 out of 5 stars
Titan does not offer a socially responsible portfolio option. If sustainable investing is important to you, you may want to consider other options.
» Explore NerdWallet’s picks for the best robo-advisors for socially conscious investors
Accounts supported: 4 out of 5 stars
Titan offers taxable accounts and traditional, Roth, and inherited/beneficiary IRAs. You can roll over an existing individual account or retirement account into an account with Titan, but accounts must be held at Titan's custodial partner Apex.
Tax strategy: 4 out of 5 stars
Titan does not offer a tax strategy per se, but Titan’s all-stock portfolio is essentially direct indexing, minus the index. Direct indexing refers to buying individual stocks to isolate tax harvesting opportunities. Titan's portfolios do this naturally.
Automatic rebalancing: 5 out of 5 stars
Titan’s automated stock and bond portfolios, and the crypto strategy, offer quarterly rebalancing. Titan’s actively managed stock strategies, Flagship, Opportunities and Offshore, are rebalanced when the weights deviate widely. The private credit funds and real estate fund are actively managed and are frequently rebalanced.
Human advisor option: 4 out of 5 stars
Titan gives its investors unlimited access to licensed advisors who can provide personalized investment advice. The service also offers investors a window into the decision-making process behind their portfolios with videos and live updates.
These insights help investors understand how global events affect stocks in your portfolio and why Titan may or may not jump on board with new IPOs. You can also message the investor relations team through the app with any questions you may have about the investment decisions the team has made, but the team cannot give you personalized financial advice.
» Curious about other options? Explore the best financial advisors
You can also message the investor relations team through the app with any questions you may have about the investment decisions the team has made, but the team cannot give you personalized financial advice.
Savings account/cash management options: 3 out of 5 stars
Titan offers a cash account offering 3.2% APY. Some of the Titan investment strategies include cash holdings, and the high-yield interest rate will also apply to this uninvested cash that’s held within the investment strategies. Titan also offers a product called Smart Cash, which leverages treasury funds, as opposed to just cash sweeps, to help clients maximize their after-tax earnings.
Customer support options: 4 out of 5 stars
Titan customer service is available Monday to Friday 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern on weekends. Titan Virtual Assistant is available 24/7 and there is also support via Twitter.
Is Titan right for you?
If you're interested in access to an active management strategy, Titan’s strategy may work well for you. If you think you may need financial planning help or tax assistance you may want to think about working with a more well-rounded robo-advisor or a financial advisor. Titan’s portfolios also have a lot of risk. Stocks, cryptocurrencies and other alternative investments carry a lot of risk, and Titan’s ambitious claims are not a guarantee.
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