WealthSimple: Am I doing something wrong, or is this roboadviser not that good?

[hesavedme94]

@leslie74 That’s nice but you’re missing my point. Over time, and I would argue that 5 years is a decent amount of time, a balanced portfolio should be showing some kind of return, not 0%. Even a low risk portfolio should. It increasingly feels like something isn’t working the way it’s supposed to when it’s always flat over months and years.

 

[lussi]

@hesavedme94 5 years is not a very long time horizon in terms of investing. Like everyone else on the thread has been saying bonds prices have taken a nose dive over the last few years due to interest rates rising.
With 50% of your portfolio in those fixed income bonds you have a greater exposure to those losses than portfolios more heavily invested in equities. Im sure if you look at the equity portion of your portfolio you will see those ETFs have performed more favorably over that time frame.
Keep in mind you are still receiving dividend/interest payments from all that fixed equity to the tune of 3-5% and as long as you keep up regular contributions you are purchasing those fixed income bonds at a historically cheap price at the moment that will work out favorably for you over the next decades.

 

[morgan13]

@hesavedme94 If you want to know what's happening, you should open your account details, see what it's invested in, and evaluate the performance of each component. It's likely your gains in one area are erasing your losses in another, giving you a relatively flat performance.

 

[shaw299]

@hesavedme94 Bonds are down 25% last year. That's all your bond gains from the last 5 years.

Unless you're literally retired, your bond component is too high.