Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Reviews
This article explains all you need to know about Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, founded in 1935, is a world-renowned banking institution. It is involved in asset management and investment banking. By the end of 2021, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management had $6.5 trillion in client assets, $4.9 trillion of which were managed. The company has about 70,000 employees in 40 countries. 12 Morgan Stanley also purchased online broker E*TRADE in 2020, adding 5.2 million customer accounts and $360 billion in assets to its Wealth Management division.
Affluent individuals and others who want expert money management but don’t want to pay higher fees to deal with a Morgan Stanley Wealth Management advisor can use Access Investing, a robo-advisor built by Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. Access Investing allows investors to invest thematically, such as in green companies or certain industries. We’ll dive deeper into Access Investing to see if it’s good for your portfolio.
The portfolios contain a mix of actively and passively managed ETFs and mutual funds.
It requires a $5,000 minimum investment, lacks transparency on fees and expense ratios, and lacks financial planning tools.
A/R Setup
Nowhere on the Morgan Stanley Wealth Management website is Access Investing. Once located, opening an account is simple and open to everyone, Morgan Stanley customer or not. Access Investing demands a $5,000 minimum commitment, which is greater than most others. There is no access to financial advisors for a true automated investment account. While portfolios are not configurable, they can be viewed prior to funding and altered based on time period or aim. You can create an account with just your name and email address to see a portfolio matched to your goals, but it expires in 90 days if not completely funded.
Building wealth, saving for retirement, or saving for anything specific, such as education, a house, a car, a wedding, a company start-up, or any other user-defined reason is the first step in Access Investing’s setup. You must provide the initial investment and ongoing contributions for wealth creation. You provide the financial objective and the time frame. An individual retirement account (IRA) is for one person only. Age, income, and starting and subsequent investment amounts are also considered in the retirement account track’s calculation of expected retirement income. The site is clean, yet there are links that open important pop-ups explaining what is being done and how information is used to create a portfolio.
In addition to asking about your risk tolerance, you’ll be given a short questionnaire to assist you determine which is best. Your investment objectives are outperforming the market, being socially responsible, or being low cost. The low-cost option invests in an all-ETF portfolio that replicates a blended market index using low-cost passive ETFs. With or without a theme, the purpose of socially responsible investing can be applied. Among the six themes available for outperform the market are:
* Emerging consumer
* Robotics, data, and AI
* Global frontier
* Inflation conscious
Objectivity
Access Investing from Morgan Stanley Wealth Management lacks thorough goal planning. Morgan Stanley provides a basic goal planning platform to help younger investors understand the account opening procedure. The goals include paying for a wedding, buying a car or house, saving for college, or beginning a business, as well as more traditional goals like retirement planning and wealth creation. It’s impossible to have many goals and deadlines.
A/R Services
Automatic deposits and withdrawals are simple to set up and monitor. Clients of Access Investing cannot trade on margin, borrow from their accounts, buy stocks outside of the automated portfolio management system, or use cash management services.
Desktop User Experience
Access Investing from Morgan Stanley is simple to use. The UI is simple and clear. While the style is simple, there are pop-ups on the pages enabling investors to learn more. Users may easily find and edit their accounts. By raising deposits or making other modifications to your portfolio, you can increase your chances of success.
Customer Care
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Access Investing customer assistance is limited. General account concerns like login or basic account access are available 24/7. There is a support group for Access Investing, however the hours are not listed on the website. There is no help chat option. Access Investing has a FAQ page, but it was broken when we tested it.
Education
To help consumers understand the survey questions and how different answers affect the final portfolio selected, Access Investing provides basic instructional content. However, once you make an account, you get access to additional Morgan Stanley information.
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management:Conclusion
Thematic investing, active, passive, and hybrid portfolio management, and tax-loss harvesting are all available through Morgan Stanley’s Access Investing platform. The portfolios appear well-planned. However, it is a more expensive robo-advisor platform. The program’s high expense ratios for ETFs and mutual funds are problematic for a long-term investment platform.
Paying more for better returns or services is one thing, but paying more for poorer performance is another—especially when advisors are unavailable. While high-net-worth clients may prefer to start with Morgan Stanley’s basic service before going on to personal advice, investors interested in robo portfolios may want to explore elsewhere. While other platforms offer similar services at lower costs and fund expense ratios, they do not offer tax-loss harvesting or goal tracking.
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog post on Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
