Met with my Pirvate Client investment advisor today for regular check in and review. Remain very happy with that portion of Private Client

It is now 2026. What is the advice you are hearing from your Private Client Advisor? What are they suggesting for strategy

My investments are entirely self-directed, but my advisor took me out to lunch, so I took the meeting.

He suggested I look at ex-U.S. (I'm primarily in VOO) and consider tax loss harvesting—pretty generic.

im heavy on VOO and VTI also parking cash on VMFXX.

whats ex-US?

Non US stocks.

International stocks just had a great year.

ah. Did thy recommend anything?

My advisor is an honest guy and knows that I like Vanguard ETFs. He suggested I consider VEU (Vanguard's non-U.S. ETF), but, of course, mentioned that he (and Chase) could also do a good job managing my portfolio.

How much do you have invested? What is the percentage that is in VOO and how old are you?

The tax advantages of having them manage is invaluable to me. Also, my advisor has access to Private Equity and many other options not openly available so quite pleased

Are they actually any better? with the high fees chase charges?

Between fees and sponsors' tendency to allocate better PE to large institutions rather than retail, no. There is a certain lottery and cachet appeal though.

Not sure what tax advantages are being discussed, but things like TLH can be done self directed - you just have to know what you’re doing.

For some people, the value of having someone else manage that stuff is worth it, others not. Depending on your tax bracket, tax loss harvesting can make a huge difference, but then I hear about people paying 1% AUM so that their advisor (with Chase or anyone else) can use TLH and they’re paying an effective tax rate of 15% or less… maybe they’re using the other resources they get for the AUM fee, but if it’s just TLH, not mathematically worth it in that situation.

Totally worth it to folks who do not have the skill set to manage TLH. Also with large portfolios you do not come close to paying 1% fees for AUM. You also get access to Private Equity investments and things that are not available to folks doing self directed.

Regarding AUM, yes, it depends on your portfolio size, but it was just an example, and the figure was relevant to it because the persona I mentioned is someone with say $250k investable assets and is in that lower effective tax bracket that I mentioned.. they are the ones who would likely be paying 1% AUM (or more), and in a lower tax bracket wouldn't really benefit that much from TLH.

Private debt is a different ball of wax and there is a reason to gatekeep it to some extent because many people don't understand the liquidity issues that can come with it. That being said, depending on the circumstances, one could carve out a chunk of their portfolio to let an advisor manage that portion into PE. You can leave the rest self directed to avoid paying AUM on the whole thing. Just have to do the math because you will pay a higher AUM the lower the managed balance is..

We can agree to disagree for the reasons I previously noted, namely the rather high fees for cookie cutter portfolio management that is handled centrally (at least for smaller portfolios <$1 million). Also I do not consider access to PE a plus, many IMs offer this now (it was touted by a UBS rep who pitched me last year) and a clear indicator that they have run out of high net worth investors and are ready to fleece the masses just as these investments tank.

Regarding the sliding scale, last I checked a few years back, the PC rates for managing my IRA were: 1.3% on $500k, dropping to 1.1% on $1MM+. Which is a bit higher than the standard 1% that many advisors charge for custom portfolios. When PC was first introduced it came with many banking perks including access to the Palladium card, free safe deposit boxes etc but these have largely fallen by the wayside. Compare to Morgan Stanley Preferred which offers some useful perks including significant discounts on auto purchases, free AU cards for Amex Plat cardholders, etc.