J.P. Morgan Automated Investing Review 2024

Many robo-advisors try to distinguish themselves by having a thing. Ellevest markets itself to women, Acorns invests your “spare change” and Empower offers dedicated financial advisors. J.P. Morgan Automated Investing’s thing appears to be convenience for existing Chase customers.

If you love your Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card or you rely heavily on a Chase checking account, J.P. Morgan Automated Investing might be a fine addition for managing your long-term investments. That’s because this robo-advisor is tightly integrated into the existing app you already use to manage your other Chase financial products—right down to a unified view of your assets and liabilities across all your Chase accounts, including J.P. Morgan Automated Investing.

This level of integration may be nice for some users, but it isn’t good enough for most. While J.P. Morgan Automated Investing works well enough as a basic robo-advisor, it charges more than many top platforms—and it lacks any additional features that might justify the higher fees.

Creating a J.P. Morgan Automated Investing account is simple. You can choose between a general investing account or a traditional or Roth individual retirement account (IRA). Other types of accounts, such as 529 college savings plans or UTMA/UGMA trusts, are not available.

You begin by filling out a questionnaire with a few key details—your age, how much you wish to invest initially and contribute monthly, your risk tolerance, why you’re saving and when you need the money.

The platform then presents you with a graphic that illustrates how much you’ve saved and what you’re likely to earn in three different market scenarios. That last bit is a nice touch that helps investors visualize the riskiness (and potential reward) of their investments.

After answering a few more questions about your plans—like whether you’d prefer to preserve capital or make as much money as possible—you’re presented with a prospective investment portfolio.

In Forbes Advisor’s tests, J.P. Morgan Automated Investing built a portfolio comprising 45% domestic stocks, 30% international stocks—a total of 75% equities—and 25% in fixed income assets and cash. The platform told us this is typical for a “growth” risk profile.

Much like leading robo-advisors Betterment and Wealthfront, your portfolio includes a bunch of ETFs (our sample account included eight funds), plus some exposure to cash. All the ETFs are J.P. Morgan funds, which has pluses and minuses that we’ll cover more below.

J.P. Morgan Automated Investing charges an annual advisory fee of 0.35%. This equates to $175 annually on $50,000 invested. That fee is costlier than Betterment, which offers a wider array of services, and Vanguard Digital Advisor, among others.

You’ll also need to pony up $500 to start an account. Other leading robos generally have low or no minimums to encourage potential clients to get going.

If you choose J.P. Morgan Automated Investing, you’ll need to get comfortable with J.P. Morgan ETFs, which are the only funds available on the platform. That’s not at all uncommon among other robo-advisors offered by big firms that also have their own proprietary ETF businesses. For instance, you only get Vanguard funds if you use Vanguard Digital Advisors.

The Forbes Advisor sample portfolio (which was investing $5,000 in a moderately aggressive strategy for about 10 years) was put in the following ETFs:

• 45% in JPMorgan BetaBuilders U.S. Equity (BBUS). Expense ratio 0.02%.
• 1% in JPMorgan BetaBuilders MSCI U.S. REIT (BBRE). Expense ratio 0.11%.
• 9% in JPMorgan Emerging Markets Equity Core (JEMA). Expense ratio 0.33%.
• 19% in JPMorgan BetaBuilders International Equity (BBIN). Expense ratio 0.07%.
• 2% in JPMorgan BetaBuilders Canada (BBCA). Expense ratio 0.19%.
• 2% in JPMorgan BetaBuilders 1-5 Year U.S. Aggregate Bond (BBSA). Expense ratio 0.05%.
• 16% in JPMorgan U.S. Aggregate Bond (JAGG). Expense ratio 0.07%.
• 5% in JPMorgan Core Plus Bond (JCPB). Expense ratio 0.40%.
• 2% in cash and cash equivalents.

You’ll notice a few trends. On the plus side, most of our money was invested in JPMorgan BetaBuilders U.S. Equity ETF, a low-cost, passive fund that tracks the performance of a wide swath of big- and medium-sized U.S. companies via the Morningstar U.S. Target Market Exposure Index. That means we’ll benefit from market gains while paying as little as possible in expense ratio fees.

Yet we have some concerns. Like some other robos, such as Betterment and Wealthfront, J.P. Morgan Automated Investing’s algorithm put us in many funds when just three or four would provide sufficient diversification. Moreover, many of those funds charge high expense ratios, limiting our long-term gains. Compare this to Vanguard Digital Advisors, where your portfolio comprises just four funds, all of which charge ultra-low expense ratios.

There are two main costs involved when using a robo-advisor: the annual advisory fee and the expense ratios of the ETFs that make up your investment portfolio. J.P. Morgan Automated Investing charges an annual advisory fee of 0.35%, but it gives you a break on the ETFs by rebating the affiliated fee amount from the advisory fee. However, you will be responsible for the ETFs if you ever cancel your robo service and move your assets into a brokerage account. Therefore you should still be sensitive to ETF fees.

Add this all up and J.P. Morgan Automated Investing is expensive compared to other leading robos and generally provides fewer features.

For instance, Betterment and Wealthfront charge annual advisory fees of 0.25%. Vanguard Digital Advisor costs just 0.15% per year while Vanguard Personal Advisor Services—which grants you consultations with financial advisors—charges 0.30% per year. Personal Capital charges 0.89%, but you get unlimited access to your own dedicated financial advisor. Low-fee leader SoFi, meanwhile, charges nothing but the expense ratios of its funds.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is the biggest bank by assets in the U.S. and offers every possible type of financial account or product under the sun, from bank accounts to credit cards to mortgages to auto loans. If you’re already a customer, you might want to pick J.P. Morgan Automated Investing for its nice integration into the Chase mobile app .

The service is adequate, and you won’t go wrong by picking it. The advisory fee isn’t excessively high and the ETFs are affordable enough that they won’t derail your financial goals. If you’re really in love with Chase’s platform, this might be all you need.

If you’re outside of the J.P. Morgan ecosystem, the case for J.P. Morgan Automated Investing in and of itself isn’t terribly clear. Other robos offer lower prices, provide a more holistic financial approach and are simpler to use. Which is to say, if you aren’t already tied to the New York-based banking behemoth, you may be better served elsewhere.