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Ask any finance or investment advisor if things have changed in the last few years and they will probably start laughing. That is because things have changed dramatically in the finance and investing world in the last ten or twenty years. Twenty years ago the public had virtually no access to Wall Street except via a financial advisor. To prepare for retirement one would simply sign up with an advisor, give them some information, and the advisor would set up their investments, do their investing, advise, and prepare them for retirement.
Today, an eighteen-year-old could simply whip out an iPhone, and within a few hours be invested in every major indices in the world, have multiple IRAs, and have a complete plan lined up for their retirement. Now that is change.
On big step in the financial world is through robo advisors. For those that haven’t heard of robo advisors, they are exactly what they sound like. Robotic algorithms that can help advise a person on how they need to be investing their money based on current demographics. Most robo advisors will also set up schedules, pull the money from your bank account, and make the investments as well.
Motif is one of the most common one of these. Beginning Stock Trader gives a pretty good review of what exactly Motif is and does here. Basically Motif is aiming to take robo advisory to an entire new level this year. Instead of you giving all your information to a robo advisor who then does everything for you, Motif will create packages, or Motifs, that you can then choose to buy into. The idea of this is that most people have some insight and brainpower as to what industries will be doing well in 10-20 years. A lot of people purchased an Apple iPhone in the first few years of its release. Most of them do not realize that if they had also purchased some of Apple’s stock at the same time, they would have tripled their investment in a matter of years. Motif gives people a way to capitalize on the trends that they see. With Motif they can just choose something that they think will take off in the next few years, and Motif likely has a portfolio geared around that item taking off.
Take Obamacare for example. Some people believe it will fail, while others are sure it will work. Whatever your belief, you can choose to invest in Obamacare working by telling Motif. Motif will then find stocks that will likely do very well if Obamacare does well, and invest in them. It’s incredible. Everyone is an investor with Motif.
Motif is just one in a giant storm of robo advisors and investment apps. There are apps that will do literally everything for you, simply requiring you to give your age and when you plan on retiring. Other apps will let you do everything yourself, such as some of the online brokerage apps. Plenty more apps will teach you how to invest and set up games and virtual trading situations to help you gain experience.
The point of this is that the world of finance has been turned on its head forever. Financial advisors aren’t necessarily going to be out of a job anytime soon, but anyone with the ability to learn and the desire can do what it takes to plan out their own retirement. The tools are there for everyone, they just need to be used.