American Century Enters Advice Arena
The online service was created by Acumation, a registered investment advisor and wholly-owned subsidiary of American Century Companies, Inc., that specializes in portfolio optimization systems. Fund Advisor matches a variety of investor goals against a universe of some 4,500 funds, whether or not they are American Century funds, according to Randall Merk, Acumation board member and senior executive at American Century.
Fund Advisor:
- Allows investors to create multiple goals, rather than retirement-only
- Provides specific, no-load mutual fund recommendations from a variety of fund families for each goal, regardless of where they are held
- Allows investors to designate mutual fund assets to more than one goal
- Provides free, live customer support via an on-line “chat” facility, email, or a requested return call.
The current version only considers mutual fund holdings in making a recommendation, but a later version is expected to include individual stocks as well. Currently, It takes about 30 – 60 minutes to establish your goals and profile.
Just Do It
Eventually, Fund Advisor will be expanded to offer a “Do It!” function that can execute mutual fund buy/sell recommendations at the push of a button for American Century Brokerage or mutual fund platform users. Other customers will be provided information on how to implement the portfolio suggestions on other platforms.
More information is available at www.americancentury.com .
– Nevin Adams editors@plansponsor.com