SAN FRANCISCO, January 29, 2016 – MyVest, a pioneer in enterprise wealth management technology, announced today the release of new tax management features for its Strategic Portfolio System™ (SPS). This release extends MyVest’s leadership in tax-aware rebalancing and gives advisors more ways to improve after-tax outcomes for their clients.

One of the distinguishing features of MyVest’s SPS platform is its asset location capability, which recommends the optimal placement of securities in taxable vs. tax-advantaged accounts based on their tax efficiency. Now, MyVest’s asset location has been enhanced to provide firms, advisors, and investors with a more advanced method of differentiating between individual securities on the basis of their ‘tax burden’. While many advisors understand asset location as a best practice, they are challenged with consistently applying it to client portfolios on an automated basis. SPS’ rebalancing and tax optimization capabilities can systematically make this a regular part of their portfolio management process.

This product release also eliminates problems related to synchronizing tax lots with custodian lot data. Firms now have the flexibility to choose tax lot data directly from the custodian or from SPS’ portfolio accounting engine. Additionally, advisors can manually select specific tax lots or allow SPS’ automated engine to recommend the best tax lot to relieve. This enhanced tax lot selection gives advisors more control over managing the tax implications of trading portfolios.

These recent enhancements add to MyVest’s leadership in tax optimization for constructing and rebalancing portfolios, which already includes:

  • Tax management fully integrated into the ongoing portfolio monitoring and rebalancing process, which optimizes the trade-off between tracking error and tax impact
  • Industry-leading asset location
  • Proactive tax-loss harvesting throughout the year
  • Intelligent gain deferral to manage short-term vs. long-term holdings
  • Best-tax lot relief method to optimize selection of lots for sale

For the asset location enhancements, MyVest engaged the expertise of Clemens Sialm, Professor of Finance and Director of the AIM Investment Center at the University of Texas at Austin, where he investigates the impact of the tax system on asset prices and portfolio decisions. Mr. Sialm said “Taxes have a very significant impact on investment returns and not many know how to actively manage tax impact on an ongoing basis. I worked with MyVest to add even more sophistication to their tax management capabilities so that more advisors can offer better after-tax outcomes to their investors.”

“MyVest is continually enhancing our leadership in tax optimization” says Anton Honikman, CEO of MyVest. “So many investors are unsuspectingly harming their retirement outcomes and the achievement of other goals by allowing taxes to erode their returns. MyVest is committed to providing better tools to help our customers address this trend, allowing their investors to capture ‘tax alpha’. Smart tax management offers a far more predictable source of alpha than security selection, and we have the tools that enable it to be harnessed.”

About MyVest
A financial technology pioneer headquartered in the heart of San Francisco, MyVest combines best practices in wealth management with best-in-class technology. With MyVest’s Strategic Portfolio System™ (SPS™) advisors provide truly personalized solutions, managed holistically in a tax optimized way, and delivered digitally — a powerful combination you won’t find with any other platform. In June 2016, MyVest became an independent subsidiary of TIAA, a leading provider of financial services in the academic, research, medical, cultural and government fields. Learn more at myvest.com.