r/wealthfront

Got 140 shares $30 cost basis in 2024 right before Q2 earnings 🤡. Held and just sold 40 in past week to pull out what I invested originally. 40 share contingent order $200 limit $195 trigger. My first decent sized winner. Any advice?

Hi all, just wanted to share my unexpectedly short experience using Wealthfront specifically the cash account. I enjoyed the application/service in the short time I had with, and hoped it would've been longer. Now I'm waiting for my money to be returned to me.

First, I lacked prior experience using any sort of HYSA. I was referred by a friend last month and opened up an account. She's had an account for a while and a generally positive experience. I was hesitant at first, but seeing the interest accrue just after 1 month was very reassuring. I gradually moved more money from my main checking account to Wealthfront.

Suddenly over the weekend, I was unable to log-in to my account via the App or online (incorrect email or password). I thought it was strange because my account was only a few weeks old and I had never changed the password. I was actually quite obsessed and checked my account daily to see the interest grow lol. I went through the process of resetting my password, but never received a confirmation email. Additionally, no information was ever sent to me about any sort of suspicious activities regarding my account. I was just locked out until I could get ahold of someone.

Over the weekend I submitted a ticket to their support email detailing what I shared here. Come this morning, I also decided why not just give them a call too. The news was not good- the customer service agent informed me that my account was permanently closed and that Wealthfront would no longer be servicing my needs. No further explanation was shared with me. I'm sure that they had their reasons and I respect that, so I told them OK and asked the agent about when/how I'd get my money returned to me. They were very vague/unable to provide a timeline, ensuring me their team prioritizes making this process quick. It was very concerning as I have a few months of savings on the line. So now I'm in a "wait and see" for my funds to be returned to me.

I read through many Reddit comments/posts about the positive experiences people have had with Wealthfront for years. But there have also been those who have experienced the limbo that I am in. I just wish I received more information/explanation as a customer. I'm hoping it's a smooth process!

(Update) Customer service experience has been responsive and professional. The phone call at least let me know my account was permanently closed. And support has responded to my email I sent over the weekend informing me know that they're working with my originating institution to return my funds.

I am interested in the Direct Indexing investment feature, but I am anxious about the ability to get out of it in the future should WF take a negative turn as a company.

Conceptually I understand the mixture of ETFs and hundreds of indiviudal stocks can be transferred to Fidelity/Vanguard etc but it seems messy. I have not found any examples of people exiting these portfolios in my research.

Anyone have any experience with this? Thank you

Just a friendly post I wanted to make that after I’ve moved most of my assets over to Wealthfront recently it has been smooth sailing. The app UI/UX is probably my favorite of any financial app I’ve used, everything is clean and works exactly as it should. Also instant bank transfers without a fee is absolutely amazing.

I also appreciate the hands off approach that Wealthfront encourages and really does seem to genuinely push you in the direction of building your wealth over the long term.

Anyways just wanted to give some compliments and praise!

Finally for the money together to open a Roth IRA. I have a 401K through my job with Schwab (soon going to change it to a Roth 401k I believe) and also a HYSA through Wealthfront. Was wondering which of the two would be best for someone who knows absolutely nothing about any of this. I've read all about the cash withholding Schwab does vs the .25% fee Wealthfront has. I understand what a fee is obviously, but the investment talk is where I get lost. Can I just put my 5k in the Schwab account and kinda forget about it? Or is that unwise. Any help is appreciated.

You can now move your individual investing account into a Joint Account without liquidating assets or triggering a taxable event. 

How the process works:

• When you change the account ownership, we’ll create a new co-owned account and automatically transfer your assets. This should take about 2 business days, and once it’s complete we’ll close your old account.
• Your assets are transferred in-kind to the Joint Account without triggering a sale or tax event.
• As demonstrated in the product flow below, you can initiate this process directly from the Wealthfront app.

https://i.redd.it/7fifa6syxdzg1.gif

Up next: You’ll soon be able to move an Individual or Joint Investing Account into a Trust Account.

Let us know if you have questions on this new feature.

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Disclosure: Investment management and advisory services are provided by Wealthfront Advisers LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Nothing in this communication should be construed as investment or tax advice. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Product images are for illustrative purposes and do not reflect individual experiences, account balances, or performance. Results may vary. © 2026 Wealthfront Corporation.

My situation is that I have large cap gains from selling AMD (cap gains alone of 570K+ in 2026) with a good amount of short term sales. I have sold so much, because 1) I am moving to a higher tax state with much higher W2 income in the latter half of 2027 2) I am hoping to buy a house within the next 2-3 years and 3) did feel that the market was euphoric.

However, I've been fretting over the impending tax bill which is going to be enormous. That's when I started looking into direct indexing.

As I understand, direct indexing has a short-term benefit for those with very large taxable portfolios, such as from windfalls. I would probably only do this for this year, because I have so much capital gains this year and I want to defer some of that to the first half of 2027 when I am still in a lower tax state (and overall still making much less than I would be starting in 2028). As I said before, my long term goal is liquidation of the majority to fund a house purchase in 1-3 yrs.

1. Overall, does direct indexing make sense in my case?

My plan would be to keep approximately 40 percent of my cash for direct indexing and 60 percent as cash/SGOV (which would be reserved for tax payment and possible re-entry of AMD in case of crash).

2. If so, should I go with a platform like FREC/wealthfront or try to DIY direct indexing (method listed below)?

 

With "diy" direct indexing, my concerns would be imperfect tracking of the index and not creating enough dispersion to meaningfully tax harvest. 

3. What should be my strategy for DIYing?

 

My current plan would be to choose a few sectors/indices to track, generally putting less weight on tech and more on defensive/commodity/cyclical because I still hold 20 percent AMD and my overall thesis/goal is now  defensive ie. being vigilant about possible market downturns. 

I would probably buy 2-3 individual representative stocks in the sector (to create dispersion) along with the index (possibly also including foreign assets and some materials like gold, platinum). Sell when there's more than 8 percent loss to capture loss, and rebuy similar. Keep the winners until I need the funds for house purchase in 1-3 years. Does this sound reasonable?

Thank you for your advice in advance!

I was using Wealthfront to help calculate my potential net worth but now it doesn’t link certain accounts like ADP. What do you guys use?

Where's my money?

They closed my account and kept my money. They blocked my number so I can't call their customer service. I have to get a new number thru a phone app to get ahold of them. Today they said they are in the process of sending my money back and they can't give any more information. What some shady ass shit.

I just emailed some lawyers about this.

Many others have requested it on here. We want it. We need it. We would love it and never take it for granted.

The hard, unsexy work of increasing earnings and decreasing spending is usually only rewarded in these amazing moments when you’re looking at graphs lol. For a certain type of person at least, it’s really all about the graph. I’m that type of person. I stare at the graph and I tell myself “wow. I’m so much better than I was back in 2023”

We need the graph dear friends. Give us the net worth tracker. Empower does it and that’s supposed to be for retirement. We wanna see

One thing I don't really understand from what I've read so far: If you do not have direct indexing (you have ETFs) then TLH works by selling one ETF to harvest the loss and buying another that is a different ETF but tracks the same index or something. So far so good, but what if you have direct indexing (account over 100k) instead?

Somebody in another thread gave me the example that it might sell Coke and buy Pepsi but that doesn't seem nearly as straightforward. Even those two might be quite different businesses even if their products are quite similar, and of course the decision wouldn't be based on product per se.

What I'm wondering is how the algorithm would actually decide what to buy instead. For the main Automated Index Investing accounts, I think there also wouldn't be an index to help guide that decision either.

I've never been into investing, I just never really tried to wrap my head around it. I have Wealthfront but only use the cash account (I have two referrals currently being used so idk if I still have that $500 match or whatever it is on top of the 0.75% boost). I would like it if you guys could explain how you have your investment accounts set up and why? I plan on putting in $2k a month and I'm looking for 2-4 year goals. Thank you so much in advance!

I keep majority of the money I’d keep in my bank account in wealth front. And i was curious if i will get taxed more or something?! Idek im pretty slow and was just curious what you guys think. Thanks in advance

I'm interested in the SP500 Direct Indexing offering. One thing I don't feel like I have a handle on, though, is how tax-loss harvesting might affect how well the product actually tracks the SP500.

For example if a stock is down, the algorithm may sell it to realize a loss. That also means though that you won't own that stock anymore, or at least not as much of it. So then if it goes up by a lot later (or, of course, down further later), that will not register in your portfolio.

So, it seems that as a consequence of this, SP500 Direct Indexing will not track the SP500 as well as a pure ETF, though you do get the benefit of tax loss harvesting.

What I was hoping was to understand what this might really look like in practice. One might imagine that the effect is greater for smaller accounts than larger ones (assuming it doesn't attempt to harvest more than X in losses), but I don't really know. I also don't know if there are any guardrails or limitations that might help limit the effect. Maybe there is a better way to think about this than I have so far.

I emailed support like this a while back but I didn't really get as good of an answer as I was hoping for. It might be good if there were a one-pager or whitepaper about this, or at least more FAQs.